


Case Nightmare Vault

by Yinepuhotep



Category: Fallout 4, The Laundry Files - Charles Stross
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-03-27 18:50:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 31,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13886988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yinepuhotep/pseuds/Yinepuhotep
Summary: When Nora discovered that her husband really had been murdered, and her son kidnapped, she reverted to the training she had received before meeting Nate, when she was a Harvard law student by day, and an operative for a black agency by night. Of course, her training hasn't exactly prepared her for what she's discovering in the new, post-war Commonwealth.





	1. Out of the Freezer

_Cold. So cold._ An alarm was going off. Was that what had woke her up? No, she wasn’t in bed, she was in some kind of… “NATE!”

Nora banged at the wall in front of her with her fists, while some disembodied voice kept saying something about a cryogenic failure. There was no warning when the wall suddenly swung up and away, and she fell to her hands and knees and crawled out onto a cold, dusty, rubber-tiled floor.

She crawled away from the pod she had been in, grabbed protrusions on the one in front of her, and began frantically looking for some kind of lock or handle she could use to open it. “Come on, come on, there has to be...” She found a pull handle and yanked on it, and the pod opened with a blast of cold and a hiss. “Please let it be a nightmare, please let it be a nightmare, please let it..”

It wasn’t a nightmare. Nate was dead, the back of his head sprayed across his pod, and Shaun was gone. So it hadn’t been a nightmare. She really had been awakened somewhere in the cold, and witnessed her son being stolen and her husband murdered. Nora stumbled to the next pod and looked in. The occupant was still frozen. _Why did I wake up? And why does the Vault keep saying something about cryogenic failure? What’s going on?_

Nora could see that a terminal on the wall a few feet away was powered up and ready for input. She staggered to it and typed, checking pod after pod in increasing horror. Every single one of the pods had suffered life support failure? They were all dead? How had she survived?

She started toward the door, something inside her chilling as she remembered her nightmare. The man with the scarred face who had murdered Nate, the woman in the hazmat suit who had stolen Shaun, and she felt something old, something she hadn’t felt since she was in law school, clicking into place. The scarred man was going to die. And whoever had sent him. And whoever they worked for. It would be just like it had been before she had met Nate, when she was working for one of those agencies that don’t exist, doing things for them that paid for school, and had left her with a skill set that complemented her legal training in ways most lawyers would be horrified by.

She hit the switch for the door and stalked out into the hallway. To her left, she saw another room full of pods. It took only a minute to check that room’s terminal and discover life support failures in all of these pods, too, but there was something different about them. She checked the pod that Cindy had been placed in (dead from asphyxiation, like everyone else, according to the list), and saw something that definitely was not Cindy. Well, not entirely. The face was the cute teenager she’d been teasing with hints of seduction before everything went wrong, but the face was the only part of her that Nora recognized. The pod was filled with… something. She wasn’t sure quite what it was, but it definitely was not human. Instead, it looked like something you’d get out of one of those underground comics that had been declared subversive of good morals long before she was born. _What was the… oh, right. Bernie Wrightson._ Except this wasn’t ink drawings, it was real, grotesque flesh.

Nora moved back into the hallway, not quite sure what was going on, but feeling every inch of her skin tingling with anticipation. It was a feeling she hadn’t had since her last assignment, just a few months before she and Nate had… no, she was not going to think about that. She needed a clear head, no matter how much she wanted to rage and break things.

The door she remembered leading from the entrance was locked somehow, but there was a side door. She took it, and saw it passed a room with a reactor on the other side of a set of what she hoped was heavily shielded windows. A collapsible baton was laying on a bench, as if its owner had dropped it. As she reached for it, she froze, stared through the window, then swore softly. “Giant cockroaches? Am I even awake?”

The baton in hand, just in case any of those bugs had made their way to her side of the window, Nora made her way down the hall to an office. Well, maybe it had been an office once, but now it looked like a crime scene. Amazingly, despite the mess, the terminal was still active, and logged in. It took just a few minutes to read all the logs, and now Nora had two focuses for her rage. An experiment. An experiment! The Vault was nothing but an experiment! She would hunt down and kill every single… no, that salesman had been feckless, and definitely out of the loop. She would hunt down and kill every single person who knew what Vault-Tec was doing, if she had to go all the way to DC to do it. If DC even existed any more.

She moved farther down the hallway, where another door slowed her briefly after she rounded a corner. The door had barely opened when two of those giant cockroaches flew at her. One roach dead, she grabbed another abandoned baton, and used both of them on the second. The attack and response had taken almost three seconds – two more than her instructors would have approved of when she was younger. _I’m going to have to get back in shape._

A common room with a bunk room attached was at the end of the hall, with a terminal on a table near the refrigerator. She checked the terminal, pocketed the video game holotape that was its only content, and moved on, searching. _Oh, you have to be kidding me. I have to go through the reactor room to get out? Who designed this place? Fuck. Where’s the roach. Wait. There’s three of them? You have got to be shitting me. Oh good. Two. I wonder if I can lure the others into the… yes. Down to one. Where did you go?_

The roach, much larger than the others, appeared from behind a crate and flew toward Nora’s face. Her left hand swept up to knock it aside, then her right brought the baton down on it, cracking its shell and spilling its insides on the floor, just like a lobster. The thought put her off lobster for a moment, then she shook her head and moved on, working her way around the reactor, just in case she’d missed any extra bugs. Another door led to a short hallway with stairs leading up to a door, and – _Oh, you have got to be kidding me! Again?_

This time, she didn’t wait for the roaches to come to her. She moved, swept her right baton through the first one hard enough to snap it in half, then spun, whipping her left baton into the second roach hard enough to smash it against the wall in a splash of guts and bodily fluids.

The roaches dead, she hit the button for the door at the top of the stairs. It slid open, on a room dominated by a horseshoe-shaped desk, behind which sat a mummified body that turned and looked at her, its eyes filled with glowing green worms. Its mouth opened, and the sound that came out cut through Nora’s brain like a rusted combat knife.

“Ah, yes. I have been following your progress since your pod opened. You are quite an interesting human. I have no doubt that you would be deadly if I allowed you close enough to damage this host, so...” The thing driving the dead man picked up a pistol from its place on the desk. “...I will just have to ensure that doesn’t happen.”

Nora noticed that the mummified body was significantly slower than even a sedentary office worker, and as its hand closed on the pistol, her left baton was already flying through the air toward it. It had not quite brought the pistol up to fire, when the baton punched through its skull, reducing it to powdered bone and leathery crumbles. What was left of the corpse collapsed, while Nora felt something, she wasn’t quite sure what, pass through her, like she’d heard described in ghost stories on the radio. Whatever it was, it felt like congealed grease passing through her mind, and gave her a powerful urge to vomit.

Once her stomach was done heaving, Nora grabbed the pistol and examined it. Ten millimeter, standard design, easy to break down and modify, like a hundred she’d used and disposed of in her past. She cleared it, checked and reloaded the magazine, then let the slide close on a fresh round. After a little searching in the desk, she found a couple more magazines, filled them, and tucked them into her suit between her breasts. Pockets would be better, but these suits had none, so she had to make do. She checked the terminal, scanned through the entries, and kicked the body. Yes, it was a pointless exercise, but this bastard had been a part of what Vault-Tec had done to her family. She triggered the unlock sequence, and while it was going on, inspected the rest of the room. More ammunition was good, as was… _Ooh, I_ _’ve got to come back for you._ If the bastard had got it working, it was a rifle that fired a spray of cryogenic fluid, perfect for freezing enemies. She definitely wanted that, but the lock was too much to open with the bobby pins that were laying around, and she wasn’t going to waste bullets on shooting out the glass. Once she’d retrieved her lockpicks from the cellar back home, she would be back, though.

The exit from the Overseer’s office led to a hallway with more fucking giant roaches. This was really getting tiresome, but after the weird possessed body, Nora wasn’t taking any chances. Crouched in the shadows, she saw the roaches before they sensed her. The pistol in her hand, pointed at the center of mass of the nearest roach, felt as familiar as Shaun in her arms. Maybe more familiar, but she didn’t really want to think about that. She squeezed the trigger, swung to the next, squeezed again, and then to a third, each one exploding in a spray of guts and fluids. _Oh, for fuck’s sake!_ Three more came around the corner and flew toward her, demonstrating that their impossible size didn’t limit their ability to fly. Two sprayed across the far end of the hallway, while the third got close enough she had to use the pistol as an improvised sap. The roach hooked her arm with its claws, and was attempting to bite through the leather cuff of her Vault suit, when she finally struck it in just the right spot to break it.

She shook off the dead roach and crept down and around the hallway, through another door and down another hallway, and then into the Vault’s entry space. Another one of those damned roaches was crawling around a skeleton in a lab coat. One shot took care of it. Just to be sure, Nora changed magazines and took a moment to top up her old one before continuing into the space. There were far too many places where roaches – or glowing green worm-things – could hide, and she was not thrilled by how exposed she felt. She crept around an overturned table and saw a roach that was glowing a different green than the worms in the dead man’s eyes crawl out of an access panel in the floor. Once it was dead, she crept past it, toward the door controls. Another skeleton in a lab coat was laying in front of the controls, with a Pip-Boy around its bony wrist. She picked up the Pip-Boy, and the hand broke off with it.

Once it was on her arm and booted up, she switched to the data screen and did a search for anything that might be stored in it about what she’d seen in the Overseer’s chair. Nothing. Not surprising, I guess. And I’m not going back there to plug into the terminal and do another search, not until I’m ready to get that cryo gun. Well, time to go, and find out if I can survive out there, let alone find anything about scar-face and whoever’s pulling his strings.

The control panel had a spot to plug in the Pip-Boy, and it was only a matter of moments before the who knew how many tons door was rolling back on its track, revealing a blinding light on the other side. While the walkway extended, Nora searched the space, found some more ammunition and another Vault suit that she ripped out of its package and used to create a bag to carry the stuff she’d found.

 _Time to find out if there’s a world out there._ She made her way through the Vault door, to the elevator that had taken her below the surface when the first of the bombs had hit Boston, and rode it back to the upper world.


	2. Doesn't Everyone Have A Secret Life?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora finds Codsworth, begins to learn about the changes in the Commonwealth, and begins to kit herself out for dealing with them.

When the elevator reached the surface, Nora looked around, appalled by all the death around her. Skeletons in rotten clothing were scattered around the top of the elevator, a rusted vertibird was draped over one of the fences, a couple trucks were laying on their sides, with crates against them as if they’d been blown there, and the windows were long gone from an elevated facility that had another vault door control visible through the window. She crept into the control space and looked around. A skeleton was slumped in the chair in front of the controls, some assorted junk was tucked into corners, and a case of Nuka Cola was still sealed, even after being nuked? How? Not that it mattered. It was at least something she could drink if she didn’t find any working water supplies.

Once she’d tucked the bottles of soda into her improvised carry sack, Nora started back down the path to Sanctuary Hills. Maybe Codsworth had avoided being blown up. Hopefully he’d have answers.

As she approached Sanctuary Hills, Nora’s anticipation sank. The condition of the houses said it had been more than just a few months, or even a few years. Decades, maybe? In any case, the cars all looked as if the only thing holding the rust together was what was left of their paint jobs, and most of the houses looked as if they’d been exposed to decades of bad weather without any maintenance. Even her own house, once it came into view, looked as if it had managed to hold together only because someone was cannibalizing other houses to patch it.

Then she saw the most beautiful sight she could have imagined. “Codsworth! Is it really you?”

“Mum! Is it really you? Where are the Master and little Shaun?”

“Gone, Codsworth. They murdered Nate and stole Shaun.” She couldn’t quite keep the snarl out of her voice. Unlike anyone else in her life, though, Codsworth seemed emboldened by it. His cheerful persona vanished, and he snapped into the personal assistant persona his AI had taken on when she was working as an agent.

“Is it time to open the cellar, Mum?”

“It is indeed, Codsworth. It is indeed. Is the neighborhood network still working?”

“I’m afraid not, Mum. After two hundred years, the network is a total failure.”

“Two hundred years?” _He didn’t just say two hundred years, did he?_

“A bit over 210 actually, mum. Give or take a little for the Earth's rotation and some minor dings to the ole' chronometer.”

“Two hundred ten...” Nora reached for the wall of the house to steady herself, and took several deep breaths. “Open the cellar, Codsworth. We have work to do.”

“Of course, mum.” Codsworth led the way into the house, pressed against a bit of molding on the kitchen island, and it swung away, revealing a flight of stairs that led under the bedrooms. _If Nate had ever known this was here, he’d have flipped his lid. He always insisted his job as a soldier was so someone like me wouldn’t have to deal with the dangers of the world. Poor man._

“Tell me, Codsworth, have you seen anything unusual over the last two hundred years?”

“That depends on how you define unusual, mum. Giant insects and mutated animals have become fairly déclassé, I’m afraid. The behemoth that stalked Boston for forty years after the war, that was a different matter entirely, and we still get the occasional tentacled horror passing through. Apparently, as a robot, I don’t appeal to their taste buds, though.”

_Behemoth? Tentacled horror?_

“Did you save your impressions of them?”

“In the mainframe, mum. I knew that if you ever made it home, you would want to know what was haunting the area.”

“Thank you, Codsworth.” Nora approached the palm reader at the bottom of the stairs and pressed her hand to it. A moment later, the blast door slid down into the floor, and she stepped into a room that, other than a fine coating of dust on every surface, looked as if she could have been there yesterday. The walls were heavy armor plate, an armored and shielded door led to a small reactor, it had its own water supply, its own mainframe, a bunk, and a partitioned off storage room with food, medicine, sanitary facilities, weapons, and equipment.

Nora tossed the Vault suit with its cargo of salvage on the bunk, and stripped down as she walked through the room. Once she reached the storage room, she took a skinsuit from one of the shelves, slipped it on, then began assembling a harness that supported some basic supplies: med kit, pistol, combat knife, a modular pack with magazine pouches, canteen, and cargo pack, a secure radio that would use her Pip-Boy to keep in touch with Codsworth, and an eyepiece she could use as a heads-up display for her Pip-Boy.

Once the harness was assembled, she returned to the main room and sat in front of the mainframe. “All right, Codsworth, let’s see what you’ve recorded.”

For the rest of the day, and well into the night, Nora studied the images and behavior files Codsworth had reported on the local wildlife. As he had said, giant insects had become so common as to be not worth mentioning. Two-headed cattle and deer were a little stranger. The twelve-foot horned reptilian berserkers, on the other hand, reminded her of the six-foot reptilian shock troopers the Pentagon had been working on before the war, but a lot meaner. The various mutant crustaceans, like the reptile, gave her reason to consider adding a rifle to her gear. She made a note on her Pip-Boy as she continued studying.

“Codsworth? These people who look like zombies, did you ever get a clear view of their eyes?”

“Quite frequently, mum. Most of them are pleasant enough folks, as long as you respect their age. They’re almost entirely survivors of the war. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that most of them come from the area between Newton and the Worcester Hills. That’s where the detonation took place.”

“Most of them. I take it that means there are some who aren’t?”

“Oh yes, mum. There are the ghouls, who are generally as civilized as anyone else, and then there are the feral ghouls, whose brains apparently rotted when they took their radiation dose, but without killing them, so they are basically just like the cannibalistic zombies from all those bad movies you used to watch.”

“I see. And how do you tell the difference?”

“If they’re trying to kill you, they’re most likely hostile. Oh, and those are generally hostile, mum. We call them super mutants.”

Nora looked at the image on her screen. Somewhere between eight and ten feet tall, greenish skin, muscles on top of muscles, not much more apparent intelligence than a football player, but with that same look of cunning in their eyes she was used to from psychopathic murderers.

“Super mutants? Is there a reason for them?”

“No one really knows, mum. The first ones appeared in 2180, when they attacked Diamond City – that’s a settlement in the remains of Fenway Park, mum – and were repelled by the Minutemen. Since then, they have spread through the Commonwealth, but most of them seem to prefer remaining in downtown Boston.”

“There’s a settlement in Fenway Park?”

“The largest in the Commonwealth, mum. If anyone in the Commonwealth has information, about pretty much anything, the most likely place to find them is there.”

“All right. So what are these like, besides really big, muscular, and mean?”

“They like to take prisoners, mum. No one knows why, but that’s a risk whenever you encounter them. They’re also smarter than they appear. They have been able to construct weapons and armor out of the scraps found in the city. They’ve even been able to reprogram some building security systems to recognize them, rather than humans, so now entire neighborhoods are under their control.”

“It sounds as if I’ll be busy. Is there anything left of the Institute?”

“That is a problem, mum. According to rumor, the Institute has become more secretive than you, and has been building synthetic humans, which they have been using to replace real humans. Beyond that, all I know is that their laser weaponry is superior to the laser pistols and rifles here in your sanctum, their armor is lighter and more resistant to lasers, but less resistant to bullets, and no one knows where they are or why they are replacing people with synths.”

“Interesting. It sounds as if I’m going to have to do some investigating.” _A lot of investigating. They used to provide some of my more useful toys when I was attending Harvard._

Nora shook her head and studied the network signals the mainframe was picking up. “Codsworth, what’s this echo?”

“A good question, mum. Let me see if I can clean it up.”

“If anyone is within range of this transmission, this is Preston Garvey of the Commonwealth Minutemen. I and four others are trapped in the Museum of Freedom by raiders. If anyone is close enough to respond, please do. I repeat, this is Preston Garvey of the Commonwealth Minutemen, requesting help at the Museum of Freedom in Concord.”

“The transmission continues in that vein, mum.”

“You mentioned the Minutemen before. What are they?”

“They were a network of militias that provided mutual support between settlements. The fact that this Preston Garvey is in Concord with four people confirms the rumors I’d heard of the Minutemen falling apart after a Gunner attack in Quincy. The Gunners are a mercenary company. The lowest of the low, mum. They’ll take any contract, no matter what it is, if the price is right. They don’t even qualify as assassins. Just hired thugs.”

“And raiders?”

“Exactly what you’d expect, mum. Bandits who enjoy killing. If you don’t give them what they want, they’ll kill you out of spite. Even if you do give them what they want, they might kill you, just for entertainment.”

“I see. So. Raiders. And what may be the last surviving Minuteman. It seems I’ll be busy tonight, Codsworth. When did you last inventory my stock?”

“That would be twenty years ago, mum, before I went on a supply run to replace everything that looked as if it had expired. Do be careful, won’t you?”

“I always am, Codsworth.”

“No, mum. I mean, be especially careful. Night time is when the things come out. You hadn’t got to that part of the archives yet. Tentacled horrors, things that are indescribable, creatures that look like ordinary Commonwealth inhabitants, but are … different. They radiate on radio frequencies that I suspect would be hazardous for normal humans to be exposed to for too much time. And then there are the things that appear in mid-air and snatch up victims the way a child would snatch up toys. Most of those haven’t appeared in over a century, but occasionally, especially around the detonation zone, they’ll show up.”

“I see. Have you noticed any weaknesses?”

“High frequency electricity, mum. Most of them either dissipate die spectacularly upon being hit with a cattle prod or other source of electricity, the higher the frequency, or the more random, the better. In fact, if you can generate a random electrical signal, you can eliminate one , even if it’s powered by nothing more than a flashlight battery.”

“Well, then, let’s see what I can put together before I head out.”

Nora moved from the mainframe to the storage room, studied her available parts, then began picking up pieces and attaching them to each other.


	3. Stupid Practical Jokester Programmers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora meets Dogmeat, and discovers that the Mark IV Pip-Boy has some capabilities she finds somewhat unbelievable. She also discovers why water sources ping as radioactive, despite water not holding radiation any better than air does.

By the time Nora left the storage room, she had fitted a stun wand to her combat rifle like a bayonet, with the power running through a randomizer circuit that caused the frequency and amplitude to change in ways that a taser would never be able to duplicate, and modified one of the other batons she’d picked up in the Vault with the same electronics. Given the threats Codsworth had compiled while she was gone, she also loaded up a shotgun with both pulse and high explosive slugs, considered a rocket launcher, but decided it would slow her down, then swapped out the 10mm pistol she’d picked up for a .44 magnum and a couple pouches of speed loaders. She’d finished her load-out with a supply of cryo and pulse grenades, some in her pack, some in bandoleers between her rifle magazines. Shotgun shells were in pouches on her belt.

“Codsworth, hold down the fort, would you?”

“I always do, mum. Try not to get killed.” The old caution brought a smile to her lips. He’d been giving her that advice since long before she’d met Nate, and she hoped he never stopped.

Luckily, Concord was only a couple miles down the road, across the Old North Bridge – and wouldn’t most people be surprised if they knew what the Sanctuary Bridge really was – and past the Red Rocket station she and Nate always used on their way in to work. She started a jog down the street, at the speed she always used on her treadmill, and was soon at the Red Rocket, where a German Shepherd ran up to her, whining, followed by… _Giant mole rats. Right._ _As if the world isn’t weird enough already._

The rats weren’t worth wasting bullets on, so she snapped out her baton and helped the dog make short work of them. She checked the charge on her baton’s battery and was pleased to discover that despite braining a half dozen of the things, it appeared to still be fully charged. Then she saw the Thing, and Codsworth’s warnings came to mind. Never mind the baton. She backed away, swinging the rifle off her back and holding her thumb near the power button for the stun bayonet.

“Come on, boy! Stay away from the nasty whatever-it-is.” The dog turned to look at her, whined querulously, then trotted to hide behind her. “Good boy!”

The Thing, which looked like nothing so much as an ambulatory version of whatever it was that had filled Cindy’s pod in the Vault, turned toward Nora, reaching toward her with tentacles that glowed with a sickly purple light. Why something that was traveling on what looked one moment like a slug’s foot, the next like a half-dozen little elephant feet, then the next after that like a dozen goat’s feet, had tentacles, eyes and mouths that appeared and disappeared at random on its body, and occasional faces in place of the eyes and mouths, she didn’t want to know.

What she DID want to know was if her improvised anti-Thing bayonet would work, so when it got close enough for her to feel something rolling off of it in waves of unquestionable _wrongness_ , she hit the power button and jabbed it, just like she’d been trained. _And if Nate knew that I’d taken bayonet training in college, he’d have a cow._

Sparks flew between the contacts at the tip of the wand. The wand made contact with the main body of the Thing. Something made the sound of a water balloon hitting a highway at 100mph. Nora grumbled and wiped goo from her face, then looked down at the dog. “Well, I guess that answers that, doesn’t it, boy? Now let’s see if there’s still water in the Red Rocket’s sinks.” Whatever the Thing had been made up of, it smelled like rotten fish. Nora didn’t really want to be covered with that smell for the rest of the night.

Unfortunately, the station’s sinks were dry, but there was a pool of water in a depression on the hill overlooking it, which Nora splashed herself from, then sat in while she attempted to wipe off what didn’t come off with simple splashing. _Ug. At least the Pip-Boy says it’s water, and not some kind of strange acid or something. Don’t know why it’s ticking like the stuff’s radioactive, though. Water doesn’t hold radiation, any more than air does. At least, not_ normal _radiation._

Nora all but levitated from the pool and stared at it, then at her Pip-Boy, then rolled it to its health status display and frowned as she studied it, then looked toward the station. _Maybe they have a terminal in there I can get working? I don’t know what’s going on, but I think I need to. This says I’ve taken nearly 100 rads. From water. Water!_

A free-standing terminal in the station’s office had a port she could plug her Pip-Boy into and get some proper diagnostics. Mark IV? I didn’t know those were even on the market. So, definite plus there. Let’s see what its capabilities are. Holotapes, just like a terminal, that’s good. Oh, and I can record them, too? Better. Now, let’s see what kinds of radiation it can pick up. Alpha, beta, gamma, x-rays, thaumic, necromantic, quantum fluctuation? Huh? Thaumic? Necromantic? Quantum fluctuation? What the hell is thaumic radiation?

Nora typed rapidly on the terminal, and it scrolled with data from her Pip-Boy.

> Thaumic radiation is the radiation emitted by high-level thaumic sources, usually entities of **REDACTED** or stationary power sources, such as **REDACTED**. Vault-Tec has entered into a contract to establish Vault 23, near Salem, MA, for study and control of thaumic power sources, as well as Vault 113, under Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain, MA, for study and control of necromantic power sources. Access level **BACON DEE FLAMEL** required to enter Vault 23, and access level **FARRANT BROWNING CROWLEY** is required to access Vault 113.

_That’s not very helpful, although there seems to be a link between thaumic and necromantic. All right… definition search. Thaumic means… oh, you have got to be shitting me! Is this some programmer’s idea of a joke? Because I am seriously not finding it funny! This stupid Pip-Boy is telling me I was exposed to 100 rads worth of magical energy? Right. And next it’ll tell me that it’s raining frogs or something._

The dog whined and nuzzled Nora’s hip. She sighed, looked down at him, and ruffled his ears. “No human of your own, boy?” The dog whimpered and tucked his tail between his legs, like he was afraid of being whipped. “I know how you feel, boy. I lost all my humans, too. Tell you what. Why don’t you take me as your human?” The dog bounced and barked excitedly. “You’re smarter than the average dog, aren’t you, boy?” The dog barked happily and nosed her hand. She scratched between his ears, then unplugged her Pip-Boy and grumbled. “I’m not going to get anything more out of this. Stupid practical jokester… pro… grammers…”

She stopped on the way to the door and looked out the front windows, where, all around the Red Rocket, frogs were plummeting from the sky and splatting on the pavement. It truly _was_ raining frogs.


	4. Concord Is Far From Accurate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora meets her first Raiders and is unimpressed. Garvey makes a better impression, at least.

It was raining frogs. She couldn’t dispute it, since the ground around the Red Rocket was covered by the remains of frogs that had splattered against the pavement, and the sound of frogs hitting the roof was getting seriously disconcerting. _Well, since I’m not going anywhere for a while, maybe I can find out if this model Pip-Boy has other capabilities I don’t know about._

She returned to the terminal, plugged it in, and began searching the Pip-Boy’s manual. _Let’s see… condition and status tracker, VATS looks like it’s been improved. Even has a destination tracker added to it. That’ll be useful. Oh yes. Note to self:_ _Make sure to update my ammo load when I pick up more. It looks like it has an ammo tracker. Radio, map, and… oh yeah, need to make sure my radio will interface with it. Only one way to find out._

“Preston Garvey, are you receiving me? This is … _Should I use my old code name? It’s not as if anyone is going to remember it after all this time_. … Agent 99. I’ve picked up your call for help, but I’m somewhat delayed by… a hazardous weather phenomeon.”

“Am I glad to hear you! We’re holding on for now, but these Raiders have more ammunition than sense, and they aren’t giving up. I’m down to my last fusion cells, so the sooner you can get here, the better. The skies are clear here in Concord, except for some kind of localized storm near the Red Rocket on the hill overlooking town.”

“Yes. I noticed. That’s the hazardous weather I mentioned. I’ve got … _He’d never believe it_ … hail the size of cue balls, and no power armor to keep it from braining me.”

“Understood, 99. We’ll try to hold out here as long as possible.”

“Can you tell me what kind of opposition you’re looking at?”

“We’re sheltered in an office on the second floor. There’s at least four, maybe five Raiders inside the building, and at least a dozen outside. I’ve already lost the only other Minuteman who was with us, and I have four civilians with me.”

“Understood. Are the Raiders all normal?”

“Not night people or Things? As far as I can tell, yes.”

“Good. It sounds as if the hail is starting to let up. I’ll be with you as soon as possible. If you can keep their attention so I can take them from behind, that would help. A lot.”

“Understood. Be careful.”

_Well, now I know the Pip-Boy and the radio talk to each other. That will definitely be handy in the future. Now, let’s see if it’s letting up as much as it sounds like it is._

Nora headed for the front of the station and looked out the windows. The rain of frogs was ending as mysteriously as it had begun.

“All right, boy. Let’s go rescue some people.”

Nora reached to the back of her neck and pulled out the rolled hood of her skinsuit, dragged it over her head, then sealed it over her face like a ski mask with anti-glare covers filling the eye slits. As soon as the hood was sealed over her face, she flickered, then vanished from view. _Good to know the steal_ _th_ _system still works after all this time. All right._ She patted the dog and let him lick her hand, then started down the road toward Concord.

_OK. Mutated or not,_ that _is physically impossible. There is no way that mosquitoes that size could live, let alone fly. I don’t like it, but maybe I have to take that thaum bullshit seriously._

While she was grumbling to herself, Nora drew her revolver and put a single bullet into each of the four-foot-long mosquitoes hovering above the gutted carcass of a two-headed cow. The mosquitoes exploded in twin sprays of blood, and she let out a soft sigh of relief. _At least they’re as fragile as the real thing. Come to think of it, the roaches were impossible, too. But at least being giant-sized made them more fragile than real roaches. Shit. Two different impossible species that only make sense if you believe that magic is real._ _Life was so much easier when it was just me against communist infiltrators._

She jogged down the hill into Concord, until she heard the sounds of gunfire and profanity. _Well, I think I found the raiders. Are they the reason everything looks like it’s been abandoned, like no one’s even tried to rebuild?_

Once she was in the town, Nora began slipping from shadow to shadow, using the alleys and doorways to supplement her stealth field. The raiders were the most ill-organized force she had ever seen, but they had enough guns to keep anyone in the museum from effectively escaping. _Time to whittle them down a bit._ She left her pistol in its holster, drew her combat knife, and slipped up behind the nearest one. A quick slice across his throat, and he was down for the count, the blood spraying away from her so she didn’t have to wait for it to vanish after it hit her stealth field.

The next raider was wearing armor. Well, leather that had been assembled to work like armor, anyway. Nora had to push his – no, her – head forward and shove the point of her knife into the base of her skull. She picked up the gun the raider had been firing and gave it a quick scan. It looked as if it had been assembled in a home metal shop out of lengths of pipe and sheet metal. _Go figure. Instead of rebuilding their homes, these people have been figuring out how to make guns. Well, given how much noise their guns are making, I guess it’s time to speed things up._

She brought her combat rifle into position and began putting three-shot bursts into raider after raider. She ducked behind the sandbags the one she’d internally decapitated had been using when one of the raiders got lucky at guessing where the gunfire killing his buddies was coming from, then popped up and finished him off. The street became quiet.

“Garvey, this is 99. Your front door is clear.”

“Only for the moment. There are more raiders in reserve, and we’re pinned down in here by raiders in elevated firing positions I can’t reach.”

“Understood. On my way.”

“There’s a laser musket on the Minuteman who died outside. If you pick it up on your way in, you’ll keep the raiders from getting it.”

“Got it.”

Nora moved from firing point to firing point on her way to the museum’s door. _How long have those people been in there? You don’t throw up firing points like this in just an hour or two._ The musket Garvey had mentioned was obvious. It looked as if someone had wedded the electronics of a standard laser rifle to the stock of a reproduction musket and added a… _Oh, interesting. A crank that allows feeding more than one charge from the power cell into the laser? That’s an interesting innovation. It would make one of these a nice sniper’s rifle, if you can mount a scope and a focusing unit on it._

After checking her skinsuit for damage and visibility, Nora slid the musket into a reasonably empty space in her pack, extended an inspection mirror on its collapsible stick, then slowly opened the door, slid the mirror into the gap, and examined the interior. Part of a crashed vertibird had caved in about a third of the roof, and the third floor, the wall that used to block view to the rear of the building was gone, and raiders were perched behind barricades of crates on the second and third floors. The rifle could take them, if she could get a clear shot, but the barricades made it dicey. Luckily, both of them were within easy throwing range, so grenades it would have to be.

The third floor raider was the obvious first choice, especially given the damage to the floor. She pulled the pin on a grenade, held it for a second before throwing it, then rolled toward the doorway to the right of the entry. The explosion happened in mid-air, just above the gap in the third floor, and the spray of liquid helium took out both of the raiders.

 _So far, so… oh, I hear another one._ Nora switched in infrared filters in her eye plates, and shook her head. _This would almost be funny, if these raiders weren’t so violent._ A warm body was stalking around in the Tea Party exhibit while yelling for someone to stop hiding. This time, the execution was a relief, given that it shut the bastard up.

Once that problem was dealt with, it was time to move upstairs. Garvey had said he and his people were in the office on the second floor. Given where the raiders she’d blown up had been pointing, the office had to have been the one directly above the entrance. It was actually the third floor, since there was no second floor in that part of the building, but that was easy enough to adjust for.

The floor in front of the main staircase at the rear of the building had collapsed into the cellar, right in front of the building’s emergency generator. Nora shook her head as she saw a flash vision of herself opening the security cage around the generator and taking its fusion core. _Great. It’s one of those?_ She slid down the rubble, considered the security terminal and the door, then checked the terminal to see if it was operational. _Not only operational, but with a password that barely qualifies? Might as well have set it to 1 2 3 4 5. I will never understand people who do that, but it makes my job easier._

While she was musing over the ease of the password, she popped the door, ejected the fusion core, and stuffed it into a pouch while heading up the stairs. With no apparent stairwell on one side of the building, she took the other side. The main hallway was blocked, but a hole in the wall led into another exhibit space, from which the sounds of two raiders arguing came to her. _Let’s hope they’re standing reasonably close together._

Given the results of her grenade, it seemed pretty clear that they had been. She rolled around the end of the wall and scanned the exhibit. Two bodies, ammo cans, and a duffle bag full of who knew what. She quickly searched the wreckage and pocketed enough ammunition to top off her magazines and leave some loose in one of her pack’s empty pockets. More of the homemade guns on these two, as well as some fragmentation grenades that hadn’t been damaged in her blast. _So far, so good. Now let’s see what’s up the stairs._

She crept up the stairs, stopped just short of the third floor, and listened to what sounded like two voices shouting threats. At least, they were shouting threats until one of them loudly announced he’d heard something on the stairs. _What the fuck? I know I didn’t step on anything, and my gear is muffled, so how in the world did he – oh, you have got to be kidding me!_

One look at the eyes of the raider who charged through the door into the space at the top of the stairs shifted Nora’s hand from a cryo grenade to one of her pulse grenades. _Time to find out if these work as good as the shock bayonet._ The raider’s eyes were replaced by writhing green worms, just like the corpse in the vault. Nora bounced a pulse grenade off the wall behind the raider and ducked back down the stairs, while the grenade detonated between the possessed raider and the second one, just as he was coming through the door after his boss.

The first raider did a fairly good impersonation of that tentacled creature outside the Red Rocket, while the second raider jerked and danced like a normal person did when hit by a taser. Once she’d caught her breath after the unclean sensation passed over her, Nora stepped carefully between gobbets of flesh, drew her knife, and finished off the second raider while he was still gasping for air. She scanned the floor, didn’t see any heat signatures other than the five in the front office, and pulled her hood off before stepping into the hallway and knocking on the office door.

“Did someone order a rescue? I’m afraid it’s a bit messy out here, so I’d be careful where I walk if I were you.”

“Agent 99? Am I glad to see you!” The door swung open, and Nora was greeted by the sight of a good-looking black man dressed like a historical reenactor, other than the laser rifle-musket-thing. _Clearly Garvey. He wasn’t kidding about the Minutemen thing, was he?_

“After what I saw in here, I’m not surprised. Are you ready to move out?”

“Other than this little problem with the raiders outside?” a second man, this one white and dressed like he routinely scavenged junkyards, commented.

“Sturges is right,” Garvey said. “”The leader of the raiders is still out there, along with at least a half-dozen of his men. We do have a solution for them, though.”

“Oh? One that we can implement quickly enough to keep your people alive?”

“Oh, it’s a long shot, but it might just work. Sturges is the one who came up with it.” _Gives credit where it’s due, too. Nice._

“Oh, it’s a good one, too. Well, if you’re skilled at fighting. That’s not me. You want a generator running, I’m your man, but don’t ask me to shoot it up. Unless you want half the bullets to end up in your foot or something.”

“All right. What is it? I’ll think about it if it’s good enough.”

“You saw that crashed vertibird, right? Well, it was carrying a cherry suit of T-45 power armor. Only drawback is, its fusion core is drained.”

“I’m listening.” _Power armor? That’s for front-line troops. I’m an agent, not a soldier!_

“If you can get the fusion core from the generator in the basement, you can power up the armor, and take the vertibird’s minigun. Raider problem solved.”

“And… you think… I’m… the best pilot?”

“Hell, you’re the only pilot. I’m a wrench jockey, not a fighter. We need Preston here to keep June and Marcy from having breakdowns. And we heard how you tore through the raiders in here. If anyone can handle it, you can.” _I think I want to go home and cry now. They’re really expecting me to drive a thousand-pound bullseye that’s been up there on the roof for the last two hundred years._

Nora let out a heavy sigh. “All right. I’ll let you know when I’m in position. Try not to start the festivities without me.”

 


	5. So You Call That a Deathclaw?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clearing raiders from Concord is easier than it sounds, especially if you have a deathclaw to help finish the job. Crazy old women with the Sight are pushing it, though.

The power armor was standing where the vertibird had collapsed the roof into one of the third floor offices. Nora walked around it, studying it as if it were a venomous snake, coiled to strike. She’d been given an introductory course on driving these things once, a very long time ago, but when her line managers had discovered her talent for stealth and agility, they had supported her decision to not pursue further training in how to use them.

Now… she inserted the fusion core in the armor’s power socket, waited for it to turn green, then opened it up. Unlike some types of armor she’d been introduced to, this at least was easy to enter. The entire thing opened up like the petals of a flower, and once she was in, it folded around her the same way. When the armor discovered her Pip-Boy, it connected to it and its native HUD had a supplemental display that indicated she could access her Pip-Boy’s functions as well. Then she saw the armor’s condition display. One arm and one leg were on the verge of losing their armor modules entirely. _Well, at least I know which side took the impact when the vertibird crashed. I’ll just have to try to keep that side from taking direct hits. Now… oh yes, the minigun. It’s not as if I’ll need it, but it’s in my way, so I’m going to have to grab it anyway._

Nora disconnected the minigun from the vertibird and plugged it into the armor’s control links. Surprisingly, it still had a full pack of ammunition. On the other hand, it only had one pack, so she had to decide whether to use it, or set it aside and rely on weapons she was more familiar with. The answer came immediately, when a raider started shooting at her from the rooftop across the street. She snatched up her rifle from where she’d set down her pack, and dropped the raider with a neat third eye.

Since crawling across the roof in this armor was problematic, to say the least, she crouched as low as she could and crab-walked forward until she could see the street. From her position, sniping the raiders was far easier than she could have hoped for, other than the ones who used the fire escapes to hide from direct fire. Luckily, the fire escapes were open gratings, which was no obstacle to the spray of liquid helium from her grenades.

The biggest problem was the over-muscled raider who had glowing eyes, just like the one inside, and who, once she took out a couple other raiders with grenades, backed up until he was too far away for her to reach with a grenade. Worse yet, he found what looked like the body of a cement mixer to hide behind, and popped out only for shooting at her and the museum.

Nora was starting to wonder if she’d ever get a clean shot on him, when a car flew across the end of the street as if it had been thrown. She shifted her focus from the glowing-eyed raider to where the flying car had come from, and saw one of the ten-foot reptilian monstrosities Codsworth had included in his reports. As she watched it tossing around cars, a plan came to her. She focused her rifle on the beast and fired. _Damn. Not good enough. Well, I guess there’s nothing for it, then._

Nora crab-walked back from the edge of the roof, set down her rifle, and picked up the minigun. A couple bursts from that got the creature’s attention, and with a little careful work, she soon had it and the glowing-eyed raider facing each other. The beast slashed at the raider, sending his body flying in two halves against the building behind him, and then turned its eyes on her. Now its eyes were glowing and green, just like the raider’s had been. _Oh, shit. The… whatever it is… jumps from body to body by touch? Shit!_

“Garvey, this is 99. Stay back. Don’t let that touch you.”

“As if I were going to? Touching a deathclaw is suicide at the best of times, and one that’s infected is doubly so. Makes me wish I had a few pulse mines.”

“Consider your wish granted. Sort of.”

Nora stood, so she was silhouetted above the roofline of the museum, and fired bursts from the minigun at the beast – the deathclaw, as Garvey had called it. It responded by charging the museum and ramming the outer wall with its horns. _Whoa! Definitely berserk!_ Nora staggered as the building shook, fell back a few steps, and took every pulse grenade she could reach easily from her bandoleers. _Now is definitely not the time to be sparing._ She pulled the pins on all the grenades at once and dropped them over the side, where they hit the deathclaw and bounced to the street around it, just before they detonated. The most obvious result of the electrical pulses was the deathclaw’s head landing on the roof beside her amid splashes from a fountain of blood and guts. The unclean sensation that washed past her wasn’t nearly as obvious, but was just as certain a sign that the deathclaw, and whatever had infected it, was dead.

“Garvey, this is 99. Deathclaw is dead. I’m coming down.”

“Roger that, 99. We’ll be waiting by the exit.”

Nora looked over the edge and made a face at the mess the deathclaw had made when it exploded. She picked up her pack and the minigun, wormed her way back through the vertibird, and back into the museum. _I don’t like these things, but I can see where having one would be really handy._ _Might as well take it back home and see if there’s some way to repair the damage, just in case._

She dropped off the third floor onto the second floor walkway, then from there to the first floor, where Garvey and his people were coming out of the Tea Party exhibit.

“Boy, am I glad you’re on our side!” Garvey exclaimed when he saw her.

“I get the feeling anyone sane should be. Anyone sane and not… infected? What did you mean by that?”

“You saw how the glow jumped from the raider to the deathclaw when it touched him, right? We don’t know exactly what it is, but most of the people who have that glow are like feral ghouls, only worse. If they touch you, you turn into one of them. There’s a few, like the raider leaders, who are worse, though. They’re smart. And cunning. They’ll use fear of the infection to control the raiders, and then you get what you saw here.”

“So is EMP the only way to kill them?”

“Fire works, too, but it’s not as fast. They’ll keep moving until enough of their bodies burns there’s nothing left for the infection to use. Hit them with a pulse, though, and they explode, just like the deathclaw did. Instant death.”

“Good to know. Makes me wish I had one of those old Tesla guns from before the war.”

“You have something better.” An old woman, who dressed like she took the Bohemian stereotype to the limit, spoke up, using that voice carnival fortunetellers used when luring in suckers. “You have strength you don’t even know yet. That’s why Dogmeat brought you to us.”

Sure enough, the German Shepherd from the Red Rocket was standing next to the old woman, his tail wagging like they were old friends. “Dogmeat, huh? That’s one heck of a name.”

“He’s one heck of a dog. And you’re gonna need him. You’ve got a long, hard road to travel, and he’s a good, reliable friend.”

“Well, he has been so far. So what’s this about strength I don’t know?”

“Oh, there’s a lot you don’t know yet. Your destiny is waiting for you. I’ve seen it. And your pain.”

“You’ve… seen it.”

“Oh, listen to me.” The old woman laughed. “I must sound like a crazy woman to you, old Mama Murphy and her chems. They give me the Sight, you know. Have since I was a girl. But I don’t need the Sight to know what you need. You need to go to Diamond City.”

“You’re the second person to tell me that. What do you think is in Diamond City?”

“That’s where you’ll find… not your son, but help to find him.”

Nora’s eyes narrowed and she studied this… Mama Murphy. She blinked and looked at her a second time. There was something about the woman. Something that… pulsed. It was weak, but it was definitely there. A kind of pulsing energy. She set the suit to run a diagnostic on its visual systems, only to see that the HUD from her Pip-Boy’s targeting software was the only visual system the suit had. _So what makes her look like she’s pulsing when I look at her?_

“Oh, your son’s out there. He’s alive. I can feel his energy.”

“And I need to go to Diamond City to get help to find him.” It was impossible to keep the disbelief out of her voice.

“I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, but it makes sense even without the Sight. It’s the biggest city in the Commonwealth. If you’re gonna find anyone to help you, that’s where they’ll be.”

“I… see.” _There’s a weird sort of sense to that, if this Diamond City is everything she and Codsworth claim it is._

“You’ll see. Maybe later you’ll bring me some chems, the Sight will tell me more. But for now...”

“Mama Murphy, we’ve talked about this!” Garvey cut in. “Those chems will kill you!”

“Oh shush, Preston. We're all gonna die eventually. We're gonna need the Sight. And our new friend here, she's gonna need it too. Now let’s get going. Sanctuary awaits.”

_Sanctuary? Is she talking about Sanctuary Hills?_

“Alright folks. Thanks to our friend here, it's safe to move out. We're heading for that place Mama Murphy knows about: Sanctuary. It's not far.”

The other woman in the group suddenly jumped up and snapped, “She knows about it? You mean she had one of her "visions" while she was stoned out of her gourd. And now you want us to just head out on another wild goose chase based on no better plan than ‘Mama Murphy saw it’?”

“It can hardly turn out any worse than... ” Garvey started, then Sturges pushed off the wall he was leaning against and interrupted.

“Hold on, hold on. Everybody just take it easy. We’re all in this together, right?” _OK, he undersells himself. He’s as good at negotiating as he says he is at tinkering._ “So, Marcy. You got a better idea of what we should do next?” He looked around at the others. “Anybody?” _He actually sounds kind of puzzled._ “All right, then. Sanctuary it is. Let’s just hope it lives up to its name.”

The angry woman – what had Sturges called her? Marcy? - subsided, then knelt beside the other man and gently shook him. “Come on, June. It’s time to go.”

The man looked up, and Nora immediately recognized the look on his face. _I’d be looking like that, too, if I didn’t know Shaun is alive out there… somewhere. Who did he lose?_

“Go?” the man asked, as if he weren’t fully aware of what was going on around him.

“That’s right, June. We’re going now. Come on.” _OK, she loves him. That could explain why she’s so angry, too. Something hit him so hard that he’s collapsed from it, and she’s gotten angry to protect him. That would make sense._

Nora led the way out of the museum, then moved to inspect the body of the raider the deathclaw had killed. _If he was leading them, there may be some clue about where they came from. If these people are headed to Sanctuary Hills, I’m going to want to backtrack the raiders and find out where they came from. I didn’t see anything that would make me believe they were living in Concord. More likely they chased Garvey’s group here, and…_ Nora smiled coldly when she found the keys in the raider’s pockets. _The Corvega plant, huh? Sounds like I’m going to want to carry a few satchel charges when I visit._

Nora dropped the keys into a pocket in her pack, then moved ahead with Dogmeat to make sure the path was clear.

“Garvey? Where does Mama say Sanctuary is?”

“Just up the road past the Red Rocket, and across the river.”

“You don’t say. I’ll make sure the road is clear, and wait for you at the bridge.” _They really are. Well, maybe they’ll be able to get some of the houses there livable again. And the sooner I can get out of this walking bullseye, the happier I’ll be._

“Sounds good. I’ll keep watch over everyone here. See you at the bridge.”


	6. Welcome to the Big Leagues, Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora finds out why settlements are always small. It doesn't go well. Mama Murphy explains some facts of life. Bourbon helps things go down.

It had been a few days since rescuing Garvey’s people in Concord. Nora had found a place to park the walking bullseye and had gone to work helping Sturges make a couple of the old houses livable. Beds had been fairly easy, once they’d assembled a wagon to haul frames from Concord. A well had been a bit more work, but Jahani’s root cellar had given up a hand pump, well point, some lengths of pipe, and a post driver that worked to drive the well until they hit water, just a little over twenty feet down. At the moment, she was on top of the Cofran house roof, drilling a hole to anchor a support cable for a wind generator she and Sturges had put together out of scraps.

“Nora! You got a few minutes?” Preston called up from the sidewalk.

“Just as soon as we’ve got this anchored.” Nora pulled the drill from the hole, checked the screw eye the hole was intended for, and began screwing it into place. “Shouldn’t take too long.”

“No problem. I’ll be down by the bridge when you’re ready.” Preston waved, then walked toward the bridge.

“You ready for the guy yet?” Sturges called up.

“Just about. Give me a sec….” Nora finished tightening the screw eye. “All set! Toss it up to me.”

Once the cable was through the eye, Nora bolted a clamp around the end to hold it in place, then dropped off the roof and looked back up toward the generator. “As long as we don’t get a Nor’easter before I can find a cable puller to tighten it, we’re set.”

“We should be all right, then.” Sturges grinned and clapped Nora’s shoulder. “I’ll climb up and connect the power, and we’ll have lights.”

“Sounds good to me. I’d better see what Preston wants.”

“You do that. And if you can find seeds for something besides melons and gourds while you’re doing whatever he wants, you’ll make all of us happier.”

“I’ll bet. Even potatoes would be good. What about those wild berries growing behind Jahani’s house?”

“The mutfruit? They don’t do so well in worked land. But you should be able to find domesticated versions if you can find a greenhouse or abandoned farm somewhere. Those would really make people real happy.”

“I’ll keep my eyes open, then.” Nora dusted her hands on her jeans and walked toward the bridge.

Preston was standing watch near the Sanctuary Hills sign. When Nora approached, he nodded to her. “You know that trader that found his way here this morning?”

“The one with the Day Tripper for Jun?”

“Yeah. I don’t like it, but….”

“Until he can get over his son, he’s going to need help. So what about the trader?”

“He brought a message from a settlement east of here. They need Minuteman help.”

“And that means us. Right. OK, so where are they?”

“It’s a place called Tenpines Bluff. They’re on top of the hill just north of Bedford Station.”

“East of the quarry?”

“And southeast of the old radar site.”

“I’m pretty sure I can find it. Any idea what they need?”

“If they’re asking for us, it’s probably ghouls, raiders, or super mutants. I’d carry pulse grenades, too, just in case. If the settlement is too big, it could be infected.”

“If the settlement is too big? How big is too big?”

“Depends on their defenses. If you have good solid walls and guards with cattle prods or flamethrowers, you could get up to three, maybe four dozen. For most places, though, even some place like here, one or two dozen is the maximum. More than that and you’re risking night people or infected.”

“What are night people?” _Please don’t tell me vampires are real now, too._

“They look just like you or me, but they drink blood. You don’t get infected when they drink your blood, though. Instead, you die. Could be right away, could be a few weeks. And honestly, it’s better to die right away, because if it takes you a few weeks to die, it’s like you become demented first. You start walking like you’re a puppet with the strings stuck, you get all jerky when you’re moving, and you lose your memories. The longer it takes, the more memories you lose. At the end, you’re like an empty shell. And then you just forget how to breathe, and you’re dead.”

“They drink blood.”

“And they’re fast, and strong, and quick, and they heal faster than getting shot by an ultra stimpak, and they’re immune to the infected, and the people who’ve seen them say they all look like they’re in their twenties. The good news is, I've only ever heard of two of them in the entire Commonwealth, and they light up like torches in sunlight.”

“They light up like torches. Preston, are you pulling my leg?” _Tell me you’re pulling my leg. This is just too weird._

“I wish I were. One of them killed an entire squad of Minutemen, until one of them hit her with a bag of razorgrain seeds, and when it ripped open and scattered on the ground, she started counting the grains. Right there in the middle of the fight. They were able to decapitate her, but even then they weren’t sure she was dead until the sunlight hit her and she burned.”

“What about religious stuff?”

“What about it? Oh! Do you mean does it affect them like in the pre-war Hammer films? Nope. Might as well spit on them. Show a crucifix to one and he’s liable to snatch it from you and shove it through your chest. Gamma guns work, though. Assuming you can find one.”

“Gamma guns? That’s something I’ve never heard of.”

“They’re something the Institute came up with after the War, when the Behemoth was stalking Boston. It had a lot of lesser things that kind of tagged along with it. That’s when people learned to keep settlements small, not just because of the infected, but because any more than one or two dozen people lured the Behemoth like raw meat lures dogs. As long as you keep the settlement small, there’s not enough people to lure the Behemoth. Anyway, the gamma gun was designed for killing infected and night people and other things. The problem is, they use custom-made high energy gamma sources for power, and each source isn’t even good for ten shots, so people learned how to avoid getting its attention. Besides, while they work on lesser things, I’m not so sure they’d do any good against the Behemoth.”

“I’m still trying to get my head around this Behemoth. What was it?”

“Or is. We haven’t had any reports of it appearing in a few years, but we’re not sure if that’s because there aren’t any settlements big enough to attract it.”

“OK, or is. But what is it?”

“No one knows. It appeared within days of the bombs falling. Ghouls who were living then said that when it first appeared, it looked like an enormous stone pyramid with a temple on top. Then it changed, and since then it looks something like a radiation storm, but with tentacles reaching down out of the clouds and snatching up people, animals, random pre-War artifacts, stuff we don’t even understand why it’s snatching it up.”

_OWFUCK!_ Nora was suddenly standing on an empty, airless plain, looking at a spot where something enormous had once been, with bodies dressed in Tsarist military uniforms scattered around it as if they had all died in an attempt to encircle whatever had once been there.

“Hey! Hey! CODSWORTH!” Preston’s arm was around her, and he guided Nora to a car that she and Sturges planned to cannibalize sometime in the future. “Here. Lean against this. CODSWORTH!”

“Not so loud. Please. Head feels like it’s been cut open by a rusty chainsaw.”

“Yeah, well I’m not surprised, given how you staggered like something had hit you. What happened?”

“What is it, sir?” Codsworth’s voice, normally welcome, was just as painful to hear as Preston’s.

“Please, Codsworth. Not so loud.”

“Oh dear. What happened, if I may ask?”

“I was telling her about the Behemoth, and she suddenly grabbed her head and tried to pass out.”

“Oh dear, oh dear. Perhaps we should move her back to the house, and find some way to block out the light from her room. She looks as if she’s suffering a migraine.”

“But I don’t get migraines.”

“It could be a side-effect of your long hibernation, mum. Let the two of us take you home.”

“All right.” _Hurts too much to argue. Too bright, too loud, too many smells, everything feels too much._

Preston supported Nora back to her house, sat her on the edge of her bed, and pulled her boots off.

“Just lay down, OK? Codsworth is getting something to shut out the light.”

“Right here, sir. If you’ll just take the other end of this, we can drape it over the headboard.”

“Good idea, Codsworth. Nora, lay down and let us take care of this.”

_Yeah. Good idea. Lay down. Good idea._ Nora lay back until she felt the pillow under her head, then let out a sigh of relief when whatever Preston and Codsworth were doing shut out the light.

_Where the fuck was I? And why? I’ve never had anything like that happen before. Am I going crazy from all the changes?_

“No, _she_ needs to talk to _me_.” _Mama Murphy? What?_ “Now let me in, Preston.”

A moment later, the sound of a chair being dragged across the floor stopped next to the bed.

“Hey, kid. It’s starting, isn’t it?”

“What’s starting?”

“The visions. That’s just the beginning, kid. It’s gonna be a rocky ride, but you can do it, if you hold on to who you are.”

“Just the beginning?” _Isn’t this bad enough already? Wait,_ “how the hell do you know about…?”

“I saw it, kid. Just like I saw you come to us in Concord. There’s more going on than you know, and you’re right in the middle of it.”

Nora groaned. _As if having visions that leave my head feeling like this isn’t bad enough?_ “What’s going on?”

“Good question, kid. I can’t see it all, but if you can get me a hit of Jet I can see more. That’s the price I pay. Gotta ride the chems and let the Sight show me what it will.”

“The price you pay? What do you mean?”

“We all pay a price, kid. For me, it’s the chems. For Tanya, it was living among the ants. For the Professor, it was having his brain in a jar. For the man with the crown, it’s being locked up in Parsons. You’re gonna go see him, by the way. You’re gonna need the crown before it’s all done. Anyway, we all pay a price. Some prices are higher than others. Yours is… hard to see. Could be painful, could be worse. It all depends on you.”

_Gah, she sounds like some kind of demotivational speaker now._ “What do you mean, it all depends on me?”

“What you pay in the end depends on your decisions. You’re not who you were before you were put on ice, but you already knew that. How much of it you know, that I can’t see yet. But I’ll be watching. For now, you just need to know that fighting it only makes it worse. Pay attention to your visions, and when it becomes more than just visions, you’ll know what to do.”

“Really, Mama Murphy, my head hurts too much for pseudo-philosophical bullshit right now.”

“He, he, he, you only think that now. But you’ll see. Bring me some Jet when you’re able to get up again, and I’ll tell you more.”

“Uh-huh.” _Preston, would you please get her out of here? All I want is some peace and quiet._

“Come on, Mama Murphy. Let’s give her some time to recover, OK?”

“He, he, he, of course. She won’t be up until tomorrow anyway. Plenty of time.”

_Why does she sound like she knows a lot I don’t? Damn. What I wouldn’t do for a Manhattan right now. Or any good stiff drink, for that matter._

She punched up her pillow and cuddled it, doing her best to not look at the side of the bed Nate should have been on, and tried to keep her sniffling quiet enough to not hear.

“Incoming.” Preston lifted an edge of the cloth covering the head of the bed, and his hand slid in, holding a glass from which the aroma of bourbon arose. “I thought you might need a little something after Mama Murphy.”

Nora opened her eyes, stared at the glass for a few seconds, then wiped her cheeks and pushed herself up against the headboard. It took a moment to pull the cloth up so it wasn’t over her head any more, and she gave Preston a grateful look as she took the glass.

“Thanks. You know the worst part of it is, she’s right. I don’t know how she knows, or why, but I could feel it as she was talking. And this...” She took a big swallow and focused on the burn as it went down. “This is just what I needed. Thank you.”

“Just doing my job. A good sergeant tries to keep on top of things. Even when they’re too weird for words.”

“Well,” Nora chuckled, “you do that. So, do you know anything more about this Tenpines place than you already told me? I need something concrete to focus on. If I try to think too hard about what Mama Murphy said, I’m going to join her in la-la land.”

“She’s not as crazy as she seems, you know.” Preston sipped from his own glass before continuing. “Ever heard of psykers?”

“Like the Stargate Project?”

“I don’t know what that is, but if it means a project for finding people with mind powers, then you’re on the right page.”

“It was something like that. Lots of rumors, no one outside the project knew exactly what it was about, just that it had to do with psychic powers.” She shook her head, then grimaced. “That was a mistake. Anyway, psychic...psykers… that’s what you’re talking about? But that’s...”

“Bullshit? I thought so, too, until I met Mama Murphy. She saw you coming for us before you answered the radio. Said she saw you coming out of cold storage in a Vault and coming to our rescue. She didn’t say how impressive it would be, though.”

“I don’t like mass combats like that. I’m better for infiltration, and if I have to fight, I prefer it to be over before the other guy even knows I’m there.”

“The only way that happens these days is if you’re good at sniping. If they’re awake, they’ll probably hear you, even if you’re using a Stealth Boy.”

“They’re that common?”

“I wouldn’t say that. More that people keep finding them in old military and police buildings. Sometimes you’ll find an old piece of armor that works like one, too. Usually not as good as the real thing, but still, enough that anyone you might want to use one to sneak up on is probably paranoid enough to trust their ears as much as their eyes, if not more.”

“That’s good to know. I guess there was just too much gunfire going on for the raiders to hear me in Concord, then.”

“That’d be my guess, too. Need a refill?”

“I shouldn’t.” She held out her glass. “I don’t always do what I should, though.”

Preston laughed and poured some more. “Isn’t that always the truth? So you were asking about Tenpines Bluff. I don’t really know much about the place. A couple of people – brother and sister, I think – started it, but they’ve had trouble getting it going. My guess is, they picked it because it’s a defensible location, but didn’t think nearly enough about whether anything would grow there. And unless you live where a bunch of trade routes cross, you need to be able to grow your own food.”

“So whatever trouble they’re having that needs us, it’s on top of possibly failing as a settlement. Well, I’ll see when I get there. Whatever it is, I hope it can wait until tomorrow. I’m not going anywhere with this head.”

“Still bad?”

“Still. Better than it was, but when it started out feeling like my brain was trying to shoot rusty spikes through my skull from the inside, that’s not saying much.”

“I’ll bet. Well, there’s still enough bourbon in the bottle to guarantee a hangover tomorrow.”

“Not much of a trade. Migraine – or whatever this is – today, or hangover tomorrow. Guess I’d better slow down, see what Codsworth is cooking.”

“Good plan.” Preston stood, taking the bottle with him. “I’ll go check on what he’s up to. You’ll be OK?”

“As OK as anyone is these days.”

“Can’t ask for more than that.”

With that, Preston slipped out of the room. Nora nursed her glass, while trying to make the plain of dead cossacks and what Mama Murphy had said somehow make sense.


	7. Lexington is for Dying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora hunts down the raiders that were attacking Tenpines Bluff...and is Named.

The slog from Sanctuary to Tenpines Bluff had been less thrilling than Nora had feared. Other than a pack of… well, she guessed they might have been feral dogs once, but they were mutated all out of recognition now… at the Park and Ride on the edge of Concord, the only thing she’d run into on her trip was some mutant deer in the trees when she’d turned off the road toward where she and Preston had programmed the probable location of the settlement into her Pip-Boy’s map.

She topped the rise on the edge of the settlement and saw… a shack. Just one, single shack, with a cook fire in front of it, some plants in cages like she’d have used for tomatoes, _Mmm, what I wouldn’t give for a tomato right now._ two people working the garden, and the wreckage of a house with… _What the hell? That looks like some kind of altar! And it’s… glowing, like an old black light bulb. Feels like… Oh, give me a break! It feels like the plain of dead_ _cossacks_ _._

Nora checked the charge on her shock bayonet, then stood, pulled back her hood to turn off the stealth system in her skinsuit, and approached the couple, holding her rifle ready to swing into use if any trouble happened. The woman glanced toward her and tapped on the man’s shoulder, then pointed. The man stood, pulling out a homemade pistol, and approached her.

“Who are you? We don’t need any trouble! We – ” He stopped dead, staring at her, and his eyes got wide, then he fell to his knees. “I’m sorry, Holy One! I didn’t see who you are at first! Please forgive my error!”

_Holy one? Is he kidding? I’m no holy one!_ Nora glared at the man on his knees. For just an instant, she was annoyed enough to imagine holding the man off the ground by his throat, shutting up his yammering. The next thing she knew, he was rising from the ground and clutching his throat, making choking noises. She could taste his fear, and it tasted better than the most expensive wine.

“Please, Holy One! Spare my brother! We are all that remains of the Master’s temple! If you kill him, the Master won’t have a priest any more, and I’m not ready to be His priestess!”

_Spare? What? Fuck!_ Nora stepped back, horrified by what she felt, and even more by how much she enjoyed it. The man fell, and his sister held him as he supported himself on hands and knees, coughing and retching. _How did that happen? What was I feeling? This is all wrong!_

“H-holy One. I am sorry for having offended you.” The man was able to force out another apology despite his coughing and retching.

“OK, OK, consider yourself forgiven, if you’ll just tell me why you’re calling me holy one.” Nora winced when she heard how annoyed she sounded. “Sorry. Do you need a stimpak, or something to drink?” She crouched to study the man, who looked up at her with a look of rapture.

“I, I’ll be OK.” He gave her a thoughtful look. “You, you really don’t know? Haven’t you felt the Master working through you? We can see it – see His power filling you.”

“The Master?” Nora shook her head. “Look, I’m here from the Minutemen. We got your call for help. All this other… I don’t know anything about it.”

“But you, you’re the Divine Vessel, just as promised in the Scriptures!” The man sounded as if her lack of understanding was almost a personal affront.

“She’s a Minuteman, too!” The woman interrupted her brother, as smoothly as if she did this regularly. “If anyone can take care of the raiders, it’s the Holy One!”

“Raiders, is it?” _Yes. Raiders. That’s something I can get my head around. That’s something I can do something about._ “Tell me about them.”

“We know where they’re coming from,” the woman said, “but it’s just the two of us, so we have to give them what they want, so they don’t kill us. We just thank the Master they haven’t killed us yet.”

“So where are they coming from?”

“The Corvega plant. We don’t know how many there are, but there’s always at least a dozen when they show up here.”

_The Corvega plant, huh? Those raiders get around._

“I know just where that is.” Nora gave the two a confident smile. “I’ll be back once they’re all dead.”

“Wait!” The man cried, then looked mortified for a moment. “Holy One, there is a gift we have been holding for you. It is a weapon from before the War, that the Temple has been holding in trust for the Divine Vessel.”

He nodded at the woman, who dashed into the shack and came out holding a Tesla rifle, that looked as if it had never been used since the day it was made, and a satchel full of fusion cells. Nora gasped as she looked into the satchel, then looked at the couple.

“You could have sold all this,” she exclaimed, somewhere between gratitude and surprise, “and had enough money to build a proper temple!”

“But we were commanded to keep them for you, Holy One,” the man explained. “A proper temple is not as important as obedience to the Master.”

“Well then, I’ll be certain to let the raiders feel just how much I appreciate this.” Nora grinned at the two, who beamed at her as if she had just granted them some kind of divine visitation. “I’ll be back.”

Nora adjusted her load, filled her pouches with fusion cells, tucked her combat rifle into her pack, and walked toward Lexington, holding the Tesla rifle at the ready.

Bedford Station was the first real test of the rifle, and it made it clear that feral ghouls, while dangerous, were not infected. It also demonstrated that the lightning effect jumped from target to target, just like a real lightning strike. That made it even better than a shotgun for clearing out mobs.

By the time she got to Lexington, Nora had been forced to slide off the rail bed and cross rough ground. She came into town behind the Super Duper Mart, stopped, and pulled her hood into place. Once the stealth effect was active, she crouched and began working her way through the streets. _Preston had said Lexington was full of ghouls. I wonder where – oh, there they are._

A couple blocks ahead, she heard the sounds of gunfire, and saw feral ghouls attacking raiders, who were fighting back by shooting at them with their homemade guns. While she was watching the fight, she heard a whistling sound from above, turned her head so she could estimate where the artillery was coming from, and where it was going to hit, and was dazzled by the reflected flash of a miniature nuclear explosion a couple streets over. _They have a Fat Man? Shit! I’m going to have to find it and take it out, or I could end up being hit by it._

Following the whistle of a second launch gave her a better idea of where the Fat Man had to be, and she worked her way around the remaining buildings until she found a way up to where the raider with the catapult was. Luckily, the raider seemed to be alone. Just to be sure, she closed her eyes so she could focus on what she heard, and fell on her ass as she saw every living thing around her, from the ghouls in the streets to the raiders scattered throughout the factory.

_Oh, ow. How in the fuck is this happening? I can see them, and… oh damn. They’re not infected. They’re full of parasites. And the ghouls are barely more than walking hunger. There’s no one else on the road with me and catapult man, though. Good._

Nora focused her attention on the man with the Fat Man, remembered how she had nearly strangled the man back at Tenpines, and imagined breaking the raider’s neck. Nothing happened. _W_ _hat the fuck? I nearly killed the guy at Tenpines! Why isn’t this working?_ Nora felt anger, and a feeling as if this were an insult to her, filling her.

Then, she felt herself filled with a sensation that satisfied a hunger she hadn’t even known was there, and the man with the catapult was no longer visible in her internal vision. She opened her eyes, and saw the man with the catapult laying on the road, clearly dead. _He – how – what did I do?_ The man’s mind left her with the feeling that she’d just improved the moral state of the world, even though she was confused about what she’d just done.

Nora approached the body, circled it while watching in case it suddenly got up, and picked up the Fat Man. Once she had it slung over her back, she scanned around him and discovered a half-dozen mini nukes sitting in the open trunk of a rusted car about two feet away. _That many? He must have scavenged a National Guard armory. I’m not sure I’ll be able to cram them all into my pack, but if I use a couple getting into the plant, it’ll lighten my load._

She turned toward the plant and closed her eyes. _Still a half-dozen on the roof, but they’re far enough apart the bombs won’t get more than two at a time. It’d be a whole lot easier if they were closer… wait, they’re coming toward me? How do they… no, what?_ Nora focused on the ones coming her way. _Did they hear something? Did I miss something that… no… they’re… they’re acting like puppets? But not the infected one… can I reach him from here? At least well enough to be able to work out where exactly in the plant he is?_

She focused on the infected one. The sensation was like zooming in on a target with a Zeiss variable sniper scope – at least, until she had a good fix on him. That’s when she felt his parasite snarl at her… and something within herself snarl in reply. She felt exactly what she had to do – like biting down on the parasite, exactly as she would bite into a piece of sushi. The parasite struggled, and she bit down harder. Without warning, it came apart, with all the satisfaction and pleasure of biting into wet cardboard.

_What the hell? That… tasted… not hollow, but like a hollowed-out husk with a sour something in the middle of it. And it didn’t leave me feeling like… like the guy tossing around mini nukes did. Shit. Speaking of mini-nukes…._

Nora turned her attention on the puppets, and discovered they were all milling around outside an upper door from the factory, both on a walkway and on the roof. _Perfect_. She loaded the catapult, woke up her Pip-Boy, and aimed at one of the raiders near the edge of the roof. When the VATS tag gave her the highest chance of hitting her target, she pulled the trigger, then ducked behind one of the wrecks on the road to take advantage of its shadow when the nukes detonated. _Wait… nukes? I only loaded one, but it fired two? How does that even happen?_

She scanned the catapult with her Pip-Boy. Sure enough, it was reading a high thaum count. _How? What makes something like this?_ While she was scanning, both mini-nukes hit, one on the roof in the middle of the raiders there, and one against the wall just below the edge of the roof, taking out the raiders on the walkway below it. _What a waste. I should have eaten them. Wait. What? Eaten them? That’s.…_ She felt vaguely nauseated. Eating people, whether flesh or spirit, just seemed beyond the pale. But after whatever she did to the one with the Fat Man had been the first time she hadn’t felt hungry since waking up. _Did I eat him? His… his soul? Spirit? Whatever? What am I? I couldn’t do that when I went into the Vault! What happened to me?_

Whatever had happened to her would have to wait. There were still raiders in the streets of Lexington, battling ghouls. She turned her attention on them. The ghouls blew out like candles in a nor’easter, and the raiders came to her call, just like the puppets on the roof of the factory. She reached out experimentally, bit down on one like she had on the parasite inside the factory, and felt the same rush of satisfaction she had with the one she’d taken the catapult from. Just like the one with the Fat Man, she felt how vile the raider had been, and her satisfaction with improving the world matched the feeling of having satisfied her hunger. _Can I feel that without eating them? Is it even possible?_

She picked another raider and felt around her mind. This one was so addicted to chems, she would even kill the other raiders for another hit. This one tasted like something that had spoiled in the trunk of the car, but didn’t make her any more sick than the others when she went down. _How am I doing this? What’s happened to me?_ _Am I even human any more?_

While she was examining the raiders, storm clouds began forming overhead. Then her Pip-Boy began rattling like a geiger counter next to an unshielded reactor, all of it in thaum energy. The clouds turned yellow-green. A tentacle reached down from sky, wrapped around one of the raiders, and lifted him into the clouds.

Nora crouched against the car she’d sheltered behind, and looked up, feeling as if the sky were pressing down on her. Another tentacle reached down, felt around, and grabbed another raider. Nora tried to pull herself in, abandoned the raiders she’d been calling, and whispered softly, “I’m not here. I’m not here. I’m not here.”

_Oh, but you are._ The voice in her mind was heavy, beating her down with every concept it imposed on her. At the same time, it was … amused? The voice felt as if she were the first entertainment it had had in centuries. _It will be entertaining to watch how much you disturb my pawns. This world has been too boring recently. Not nearly enough interesting minds. These minds you brought me, they’re like… how do the humans say it? Like popcorn. Full of air and not interesting by themselves. Yours isn’t developed. Not yet. But you have so much potential, and the Nazgûl will hate you with a hatred that I will gain much enjoyment from. Now, go, and do what you do best, Daughter of Wendigo._

_Daughter of Wendigo? What the – What the hell is Wendigo?_

The voice simply laughed as the storm dissipated, leaving the sky clear, and everything in Lexington, other than her, dead.


	8. Wait! I Have My Own Cult?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora learns what the cultists think she is, which is bad enough, but then she discovers that the abilities they claim she has might actually be real.

_Daughter of Wendigo? What the – What the hell is Wendigo?_

Nora watched the storm dissipate, while the strange voice laughed in her head, and every living being that had been in Lexington no longer appeared to her inner vision. _Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck! I need to get out of here, right fucking now!_

A light breeze picked up, and within moments it was whipping around her like a pocket-sized hurricane. She covered her head with her arms, as the wind began picking up debris and whipping it around her. While she was watching in case any of the debris threatening to hit her, the ground fell away under her. _What? What the hell? How is this happening?_

Within a moment, the ground was a hundred feet below her, and the whirlwind was carrying her toward Tenpines Bluff. She was over Bedford Station before her heart stopped racing and she lowered her arms. When she saw the shack at Tenpines, she wished she were standing on the ground. The whirlwind shrank, taking her with it, and vanished just as her feet touched the ground.

The brother and sister fell on their faces at her feet, chanting in unison, “Ithaqua! You have blessed us with your Vessel!”

“All right.” Nora’s lack of understanding – of any of what was going on – was making her cranky, and her voice came out in an annoyed growl. “You two. Start talking. Who is Ithaqua, and why do you think I’m his or her or its vessel?”

“You are the Wind-Walker,” the man said, “Daughter of the Wind-Walker, Born of Ice, who devours those who anger you. We are your servants, Lady, and servants of your dread father, Ithaqua, the Wendigo.”

“You have shown the signs, Lady,” the woman said. “You shine with the light of the boreal night. You bring frozen death to your foes.” _How the hell does she know about my grenades – oh, right, they’re on my bandoleer._ “You ride the wind as the Daughter of the Master.” She glanced at her brother and added softly, “And when you almost killed my brother, your eyes glowed, just like the Master’s are said to glow.”

“My eyes glowed?”

“Red, like the red of a fully-charged laser musket.” _My eyes glowed. I – that’s just weird. Too weird._

“So you think I’m… the daughter of Ithaqua? Do your scriptures teach about Ithaqua?”

“Yes! Yes!” the man sounded as if he were going to orgasm on the spot. Then, he slumped. “But you will have to learn the sacred language in order to read them.”

“The sacred language? What’s that?”

“The language of the gods. It is the language they gave us, to learn their teachings, their rituals, and the spells they grant us.”

“Spells. You can do spells.” Nora wasn’t sure whether to laugh or bite her tongue at the idea.

“Just as you are able to use your Father’s powers, He grants us the ability to call upon His power, as long as we are devout.” The man raised a hand and pointed at the ruined house surrounding the altar, where a glowing giant roach was crawling from under the floor.

“Die in ice!”

The roach froze, just as if Nora had hit it with a cryo grenade. The man’s voice dug into her mind, and she felt as if she could almost understand it.

The woman gave the man an angry look, and pushed on his shoulder. “Don’t do that just to show off! You know what happened to Father!”

“Father was old, and had been doing magic all his life! Of course it happened to him!”

“Wait. Your father? What happened to him?” Nora looked from the roach to the brother and sister, and she narrowed her eyes as she waited for an answer.

“What happens to everyone who uses too much magic,” the woman said. “His mind failed. He became a puppet in his own body, he lost his memories, and eventually he would have forgotten even how to breathe.”

“Would have?” _That sounds ominous._

“We gave him to the Master. It was the best death that he could have wished for.”

“Gave him to the Master. Does that mean what it sounds like?”

“He dressed in his best robes,” the daughter said, her eyes lit up as if she were remembering something transcendent. “We helped him onto the altar, and then he called to the Master himself. He offered himself up, and the Master accepted him. His body transformed into ice, then broke apart on the altar and vanished into smoke.”

_Fuck. What am I supposed to do now? Human sacrifice? But is that any worse than eating someone’s soul? I don’t know. I don’t know enough about this Ithaqua to be able to say._

“Teach me.” Nora commanded the couple. “Teach me the language, and teach me how to read the Scriptures.”

“Remember what Father said?” the woman said. “There are more texts in the library. They kept them in a locked section, where no one could read them. But the Holy One could get them and bring them here!”

“I have a name, you know. It’s Nora. Speaking of which, what are your names?”

“I’m Marsha, and this is John.” Marsha sidled closer to Nora and whispered, “He tries so hard to be a good servant, he forgets things like that.”

“OK. Marsha, what’s this about the library? Do you mean the main building at Copley Square?” _Of course!_ “The rare books department, right?”

“That’s right! I’ve never been able to get in, because it’s full of robots and defense turrets. But you could do it! And once you get to the rare books department, there are texts and manuscripts that should be in our possession, not locked away.” _Marsha sounds as if the idea of getting her hands on those texts makes her as happy as teaching about Ithaqua makes John._

“All right. Library it is. Oh yeah, and the raiders are all dead.”

“Of course they are,” John said. “We knew they would be as soon as you said you would take care of them. We follow you, Lady. If you support the Minutemen, then so do we. We are yours to command.” _Well, that’s not creepy, now is it? Two people who worship a… god?… that likes human sacrifice are now following me. I’d better make sure I don’t do or say anything that makes them think I want any sacrifices I don’t get myself._

“Tell me everything you know about the library.”

“Well, I saw signs of super mutants around it – you know, meatbags, stakes sticking out of the ground, that kind of thing. But they’re usually easy to get around, as long as you’re very sneaky and their dogs don’t smell you. The door on the west side has an intercom, but it just keeps saying that only employees are allowed inside.” Marsha snorted. “As if there’s been any employees since the War.”

“Sounds simple enough.” Nora thought aloud while she focused on what she could remember of the library from before the war. “Maybe I’ll be able to find out what the hell Nazgûl are, besides monsters from Tolkien.”

John and Marsha both gasped in fear, and made warding gestures. The air glowed in the trails their hands left.

“Don’t say the name!” John cried. “You could attract their attention!”

“They’re evil!” Marsha said. “They call up demons, and they use Infected as servants, and they attack every temple that isn’t one of theirs, no matter who it serves, and they even tried to fence in the Master by making a fence of sacrifices across Canada, all of them looking North when they were killed. They chain their victims with geasa that destroy them, or they bind demons to their victims that eat them from the inside. They are so evil, even the Institute is better. They’re so evil, if I were being chased by them, I would run to the nearest super mutant settlement and hope they follow.”

“I, uh, I get the picture.” _Damn. Whoever they are, these two are definitely terrified by_ _them_ _. Sounds like I need to know more, just in case. That binding and demons thing definitely sounds bad._ “All right. I want the two of you to make this a bit more livable while I’m gone. See if there’s some materials nearby you can drag back and use to make your shack a nicer place to live, at the very least. And maybe put up some fencing so that if anyone tries to come up here, they have to get past you before they can approach the altar.”

“It shall be done,” John declared, while bowing to Nora.

“Do you have a radio you can use to call for help?”

“No, Lady – err, Nora.” Marsha changed her tune quickly when Nora gave her a disappointed look. Nora smiled at the use of her name, while Marsha continued. “We have a radio we can use to pick up Diamond City Radio, and a station that only broadcasts music but no talking, but it only works when we can find batteries for it.”

“I see. That won’t do. That won’t do at all.” Nora looked at the two of them, then closed her eyes and focused her attention on them, memorizing their internal appearance, their taste, the way they pulsed with an energy that was entirely different from Mama Murphy’s. “I have it.”

She approached John, placed her hands on either side of his head, and focused. _There’s a… no, there are lots of spaces there. If I can wiggle into them, fill them up… Yes! It worked!_ She could feel John in the back of her mind, and it was pretty obvious he could feel her, too.

“Marsha, come here.” Nora turned to Marsha, while John was marveling at the feeling of her filling up the empty spaces in his mind. She couldn’t give him back his memories, but the spaces left plenty of room for her. Marsha, on the other hand, had far fewer empty spaces. This would take more intense and careful intrusion. Not that Nora minded, since Marsha was at least cute, and clearly intelligent and curious enough.

“Yes, Nora?” Marsha looked into Nora’s eyes, her eyes wide with curiosity and wonder. Nora cupped the back of Marsha’s head and kissed her, as deeply and thoroughly as she would a lover, with one hand at the back of Marsha’s head and the other at the back of her waist. She used the contact to ease her way into Marsha, who had so few empty places to fill that she felt she had to be extremely careful to not damage her. While she was weaving herself into Marsha, the other woman was pressing against her, as if the kiss were triggering desires…. _No, not as if. She wants me. She doesn’t know exactly what she wants, but she knows she wants me._

“Later,” Nora whispered as she pulled away, with Marsha in the back of her mind right next to John. “It will be your reward for helping me.”

Marsha vibrated in place, as if she wanted to bounce but was afraid to let herself. Nora laughed and touched a finger to Marsha’s lips. “Now, if either of you are in trouble, you can call me and I will hear you.”

“I can feel you!” Marsha gasped, and gazed at Nora with what felt to her like more adoration than she had shown when falling on her face. Her voice lowered, and became uncertain and hesitant. “You… you don’t feel dreadful at all.”

“Oh, I can be, when I have to.” Nora gently stroked Marsha’s cheek. “But when I don’t have to, I prefer to be just me.” She let Marsha press against her hand for a moment, then stepped back. “And now I need to see about that library.”

Nora waited until she had walked far enough away from the couple to be out of hearing range, then activated her radio. “Preston, this is Nora. Tenpines Bluff is ours. I’m on my way to Copley Square.”

“That’s perfect. There’s a spot my scouts just reported on that’s on your way. Ever hear of the Starlight Drive-in?”

“Hear of it? I used to go there to watch movies! What about it?”

“Well, it’d make a pretty good place for a settlement, if you can clear whatever wild animals have started nesting under the cars.”

“I don’t know. It’s awfully exposed...”

“That’s why you’re the best person to figure out what defenses would work there. Given its location, it would make a really good trade center, if nothing else.”

“You have a point. I’ll check it out on my way. No idea what kind of animals are there?”

“None. The scouts just said they were vicious and were nesting under or around the cars.”

“Well, I’ll find out soon enough.”

No raiders or ghouls had moved in along the route she’d followed to Lexington, so when she turned off just past a herd of wild two-headed cattle, she was only a few minutes from the drive-in. There were plenty of abandoned cars there, along with a few skeletons that looked as old as the cars.

When she’d made it to the front of the snack bar without being attacked by anything, Nora closed her eyes and reached out with her internal vision. _Mole rats? Nothing but mole rats? Can I… no. I can’t get a grip on them._ _It’s_ _like they don’t have any minds to grab. Well, then…_

Nora walked toward the cars, and the mole rats began boiling from under them. She tossed a grenade, which froze three of them in one blast, then tossed a second, which bounced off a car and rolled back to her feet. _Ohshit, this is going to hurt._

The grenade exploded, catching Nora and two more mole rats in its liquid helium spray. _I’m… alive? I’m not even uncomfortable._ Nora moved her hand in front of her face, then curled her fingers and watched as air frosted onto her skin. _It feels… natural. Like –_ The last of the mole rats leaped for her. Nora’s hand snapped out, almost on its own, and slapped the mole rat’s nose. The rat flash-froze, then shattered into hundreds of pieces.

Nora stared at the sublimating rat rubble, then stepped around it and touched one of the cars. The metal became cold enough to collect a layer of frozen air. She brought her hand down on it in a hammer fist. The car shattered as if it were made of sugar glass. Nora stepped back until she backed into one of the picnic tables, sat down hard, and began laughing hysterically.


	9. Brotherhood of Steel? What’s that? A high-tech mercenary company?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora discovers some abilities are coming as easily to her as eating souls. Including pissing off Brotherhood paladins, apparently.

“Hey lady! HEY! LADY! ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”

Nora slowly turned to look at the man who was yelling at her. It had been long enough since killing the mole rats that the sun was down, and a caravan was using the awning on the snack bar as a shelter for camping under. The man backed off, holding up his hands, and the two guards with him pointed their guns at her. Nora reached up, touched her face, and sighed, closing her eyes.

“Sorry. Just tired. You knew about the mole rats? I took care of them.”

“Thanks, I guess, but….” One of the guards started.

“She can talk. I don’t know what the red glow means, but she can talk, so she’s not Infected,” the other guard said.

“No, I’m not infected. And I’m not night people, either. I don’t know what I am any more. I’m just tired.” Nora stayed where she was, sitting on the picnic table. “Tell you what. I’ll just check inside the snack bar while you camp there. That way, you don’t have to worry about me.” _Well, any more than I do, anyway._

“Good idea, lady. You go ahead,” the guard who hadn’t said anything about her eyes said. Both of them kept their weapons trained on her, clearly still suspicious.

Nora froze the trigger on the homemade bomb on the counter, then picked it up as she walked toward the door. _Don’t know what I’ll do with it, other than study how it was made, but it’s interesting._ She stepped over the tripwire at the bottom of the door and studied it before detaching the homemade bomb from the inside of the door frame and adding it to the one from the counter. The appliances looked like scrap for whoever settled here once she notified Preston, so she took the stairs up. The first landing had a door that opened on the top of the awning. Nothing really interesting, so she took the stairs up to the projection booth. Someone had dragged a mattress in, long enough ago that the fabric covering it was barely holding together. Still, it was a place to sleep, and the caravan wouldn’t have to worry about her as long as she was inside, and not threatening them, even if it was just in their fears.

Nora woke to water dripping on her and sunlight somehow hitting her eyes. When she opened her eyes, she saw the window and the top of the stairs were closed by a layer of ice as thick as the window frame, and an ice dome between her and the roof, which was the source of the dripping water.

She sat up and looked around, sighed, and rapped on the ice covering the stairs. _Note to self:_ _ice has its uses, but being sealed in somewhere is not one of the fun uses._ It was too thick to break with her hands, and probably not wise to try electricity on it. She searched her pouches for her earplugs and put them in, then pulled out her shotgun and fired two slugs into the ice, a couple feet apart. The impact of the second slug made the cracks from the first open up, so when she hit the ice with the butt, it broke apart and dropped down the stairs.

_Well, that’s good. Now to get my gear and call Preston._ She gathered her gear, slipped her pack on, and headed down to the ground level. Once she was out in the sun, she activated her radio.

“The drive-in’s cleaned out, Preston. If you want to use it, you’re going to have to send me some people to salvage the cars and build something to live in. As it is right now, the only shelter is the snack bar and the utility spaces behind the screen.”

“We can handle that. What about defensibility?”

“Well, guards at the gate and the entrances traders use will go a long way toward helping with that. There’s a fence along one side that looks mostly intact, maybe we could reinforce it. The other side, though, that’s going to need either patrolling guards or defensive turrets. It’s just too open.”

“We can get turrets. I know a supplier. Lots cheaper than patrols, too.”

“Good. If we can set up turrets and sleeping quarters, that’ll start toward making this a good trade hub. Maybe some warehouse space for traders to keep their goods in between trips, too. There’s plenty of room for it.”

“I like that plan. Giving traders a hub will give them a reason to support us. What about you? How are you holding up?”

“I need to do some research at the library. That means a trip to Copley Square. Anything I should know about on the way?”

“Just the usual. Gunners, ghouls, super mutants, and raiders. Are you sure you want to make that trip alone? Shouldn’t you at least take Dogmeat with you?”

“I’m not sure that’d be a good idea. If I need to get drastic with any of the opposition, he could get hurt.”

“Err… what do you mean by getting drastic? He’s a smart dog. He knows better than to run into gunfire, unlike some privates I’ve known.”

“I’m sure he does. But, you know, if I have to freeze the entire neighborhood to make them stop shooting at me, he could get caught in it.”

“I have never seen anyone who loves cryo grenades as much as you do.” Preston didn’t quite manage to let off the mic in time to cut his laughter.

“What can I say? They save on ammo, and I can clear a room with just a couple.” _I think I’ll wait to tell him I don’t need the grenades until I get home._

“And when you run out?”

“Sturges and I will just have to salvage enough engines from old cars to build a power plant that can provide the power I need to make more. And the good news is, it’ll give enough power to the neighborhood that we could set up lasers on the approaches that are hard to get to when patrolling.”

“Well, as long as you’re confident, I won’t try to argue you out of it. Just… be careful, OK?”

“Always. Now, I need to cook some breakfast and get on the road. Talk to you later.”

Nora checked the mole rats. They were still too frozen to cut any meat from. _Oh, well. I’ll just have to try to get a squirrel or something on the road._

College Square lit up like a Christmas tree in her mind as she approached it. At the same time, her Pip-Boy lit up with notification of a new radio signal. Nora frowned, then switched frequencies to see what the Pip-Boy was squawking about.

“This is Scribe Haylen of Reconnaissance Squad Gladius to any unit in transmission range. Authorization Arx. Ferrum. Nine. Five. Our unit has sustained casualties and we're running low on supplies. We're requesting support or evac from our position at Cambridge Police Station. Automated message repeating...”

Nora groaned and switched off the radio. Great. A military unit in trouble. _Why can’t life be simple? Oh, well._ She reached out into the square and snuffed out the ghouls, then began eating raiders. _Good grief, how many are there? Have they avoided the Behemoth just because they’re not really organized?_

By the time she got to the police station, she felt as if she were glowing from all the energy she’d consumed. The rear of the station was surrounded by barricades, with the sound of combat on the other side. She found a gate and slipped through, and found three people, one in a walking bullseye and two in strange-looking uniforms, fighting a horde of ghouls. She plucked two grenades from her bandoleer and tossed them into the middle of the incoming ghouls, then slung her Tesla rifle off her back and began firing into the horde, while the walking bullseye fired a laser rifle, and one of the others applied medical treatment to the other. Nora went through three fusion cells before the ghouls stopped attacking.

“Are you three all right?”

“We appreciate the assistance, civilian, but what’s your business here?” the walking bullseye said. _Ug! Do I sound that processed when I’m wearing one?_

Nora snorted at the ‘civilian’ and turned on the radio, which was still repeating the distress call. She looked up at the walking bullseye’s helmet with a raised eyebrow. “Well, now that the ghouls are taken care of, I have my own business to deal with. In the future, if you need me, ask for Agent 99.”

“Agent 99?” the walking bullseye asked.

“Agent 99, Department of Internal Security, Control Division.”

“Control? But we haven’t found any post-war evidence of DIS anywhere outside of DC,” one of the two in uniform – a woman with the voice of Scribe Haylen – said.

“I’ve been on ice for 200 years. Vault 111.”

“A Vault Dweller?”

“Well, more like a Vault Sleeper. When said I was on ice, I meant it. Literally. Vault Tec had us in cryo sleep. Everyone else died.” _Maybe I did, too, and this is Hell._

“If I appear suspicious,” the walking bullseye said, “it's because our mission here has been difficult. Since the moment we arrived in the Commonwealth, we've been constantly under fire. Paladin Danse, Brotherhood of Steel. Over there is Scribe Haylen and Knight Rhys. We're on recon duty, but I'm down a man and our supplies are running low.”

“Brotherhood of Steel? What’s that? A high-tech mercenary company?”

Scribe Haylen winced and frantically waved her hands at Nora while shaking her head. Knight Rhys facepalmed. The walking bullseye looked down at Nora and grated out, “Your assistance is appreciated, but no longer needed. You can leave the compound under your own power, or I can eject you. Your choice.”

“Anything you say.” Nora shrugged, and wind began whipping around her, then lifted her off the ground. As it carried her over the police station, she re-slung her Tesla rifle and moved grenades from pouches to her bandoleer. The sound of shouting came from the Brotherhood compound, but was drowned out by the wind.

_I should have done this to begin with. But he annoyed the shit out of me. You’d think I’d insulted him and all his ancestors. Actually, I’m not quite sure how I’m doing it, but it feels like I’m doing the right thing. Maybe that’s the thing. I just needed to be annoyed enough? Like I needed to be scared as shit the first time?_

She began hearing gunfire from below, and looked down. _Isn’t that the Esplanade? Well, Codsworth did tell me the super mutants like to take over parts of the city. Am I close enough to...yes, I am. Do they taste any different than humans?_ She focused her attention on the one she could see muzzle flashes from. _Huh? They_ are _humans? What the hell? That looks like a CIT logo. Where did he get it from?_

A second whirlwind swirled around the super mutant that had been shooting at her, spinning it until it lost its grip on its weapon and spewed vomit in a spray around it as it raised it close enough she could study it more closely. _Just as ugly as the pictures, but the tatters of a lab coat are interesting._

“I’m gonna rip your arms off!” _Well! It talks!_

“I doubt it. Not up here, anyway. Tell me, where’d you get the lab coat?”

“Put me down, you glowy-eyed freak!” _Well, that tells me something new. I guess my eyes glow when I’m riding the winds._

“Just tell me where you got the lab coat.”

“Took it from da eggheads after they dunked me in da glowy stuff.”

“Took it from the eggheads? Were there others wearing them?”

“All of ‘em. Hadda picture on da wall, too! Just like this!” The super mutant jabbed at the logo on the tattered fabric.

“What’s the glowy stuff?”

“Dunno. Hard ta think. Made my clothes tear. Didn’t like it. Busted onea da eggheads and took his coat. Coat tore, too.”

_Given that he looks about twelve sizes too big for it, I’m not surprised. But if the Institute is dunking people in tanks of something that causes this, they’ve metastasized since the War._

Nora focused on putting the super mutant back where she’d found him, and the whirlwind holding him cooperated, returning him to where it had picked him up. _Thank goodness that worked._ Copley square was close enough to see, so once her passenger was dealt with, she shot forward and landed in front of the entrance to the T station. _Now let’s see if I can hack the intercom._


	10. The Library is for Knowledge, Right?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora discovers the Boston Public Library is more than just a library. It's also a repository for the OPA, who don't like outsiders accessing their books.

Nora still couldn’t believe the Mayor of Boston had used 123456 as his ID number for getting into the library. If that was what he used for everything, all she had to do was hunt up anything else he’d had in 2077, and she’d probably have more junk than she could carry. Still, using the mayor’s ID had let her in without any trouble from the robots or defense turrets. Good thing, too, given how many dead super mutants were laying on the floor.

The only problem was, the hallway leading to the rare books department was collapsed. She would have to either figure out how to get around the blockage, or how to remove it, if she were going to get at the texts – and this close, she could feel them calling to her, like the smell of coffee. _Wait. If the car crumbled like that, why shouldn’t this mess?_

She reached out and pressed her hand against the largest chunk of concrete in the rubble, and after a moment, air began to freeze out on it. _Not cold enough. It’s still solid. I need to make it colder._ She focused on the concrete, concentrated, and air began rushing past her, toward the rubble, forming little vortices as the air froze onto the concrete, then sublimated, the cycle of freezing and vaporizing creating a little storm in the hallway that scattered rubble in its path. The effort of chilling the concrete beyond the temperature she’d used to freeze the mole rats and turn the car brittle made Nora’s head swim as if she were on the last mile of a marathon.

Bullets slammed into the rubble, shattering it. Nora fell to her knees, just as a burst of gunfire went through the space where her head had been. The hallway was nothing but minor bits of rubble now, clear enough to get to the rare books department, but someone was shooting at her. She reached out with her eyes closed. _A super mutant. Oh good._ The super mutant went a fair way toward restoring her energy. She reached out farther, and felt what had to be a full squad of them, invading the library from the Copley T station. Her hunger took care of the rest, giving her the energy to push back to her feet and look down the hallway. _It worked. It was exhausting, but it worked._

Nora staggered down the hallway, leaving the vortices behind her, still stirring up the rubble and throwing it out of the hall. A heavy security door blocked her path at the end of the hall, with a security terminal on the wall, and a turret mounted on the ceiling, tracking her as she approached.

She entered the mayor’s ID into the terminal, and the light on the turret turned red. _Shit. It’s active._ She dove back toward the frozen section of the hall, while throwing her hand at the turret. It exploded when something inside it objected to being suddenly brought to cryogenic temperatures. _What the hell is in here that the mayor’s ID isn’t good enough, and they had a fucking heavy laser turret on the door?_

Now she was angry. Whatever was in there, just trying to get in should not produce that kind of response. She pointed at the security door and froze it. _At least it’s just steel. Cold enough, and…_ She fired her shotgun into the door, and it shattered, just like the car had.

Nora walked through the shattered remains of the security door, and saw something glowing on the floor at the far end of a short entry hall. It looked like a circle, with a flaming eye in the center of a star in the middle of it. The lines had symbols written along them, and the entire thing glowed in that same black light glow the altar back at Tenpines had. As she approached it, she felt a pressure against her, as if the hall were blocked by heavy curtains, and something pounded at her head, as if she were surrounded by men hammering on gongs.

A figure in a hooded black robe suddenly appeared beyond the circle on the floor and pointed at her, intoning something she couldn’t hear clearly.

**You do not belong here. Submit to your master.**

The figure looked surprised when she snarled angrily, snatched her Tesla rifle off her back, and unloaded an entire fusion cell into it. When the lightning crossed the circle, it exploded like a homemade grenade, which only made Nora more angry. Whatever the figure was, it wasn’t human: that much, she could tell. It did, however, explode like an Infected when the lightning hit it, except instead of spraying her with gore, it vanished in a puff of logic. _Why did that phrase come to mind? It works, but given the circumstances, it’s weird._

She crossed the spot where the circle had been, and studied the spot where the robed figure had vanished. _Nothing. It’s completely gone. What was it?_ _And why does this room have so many square protrusions in it? Most armored facilities like this are arched and curved, but this one is all square corners._

Something caught her attention, stepping almost into view from one of the corners at the far end of the room. It was as dark as the hooded figure, but seemed hound-shaped. Then it stopped, and she saw it clearly. Well, mostly clearly. It was definitely shaped like a hunting hound, maybe a wolfhound, given its size, but it was as black as a pit, and she knew in the pit of her stomach it was there to kill her. The hound burst into motion, lunging across the floor toward her like a sentry dog. She pressed the trigger on her Tesla rifle, while rolling behind one of the cubical protrusions. The lightning struck the hound and it hesitated, just long enough for her to see parts of it that had been nothing but a distortion in the air fade into view. _It doesn’t have any eyes! Shit. That means it must hunt by scent. Can I…_

She dropped her temperature, chilled herself until the air began snowing out around her. Vortices began forming around her, just like they had in the hallway. The hound made a whining noise, as if it had lost her scent – or smelled something that frightened it. She wasn’t sure, and didn’t really care. Now that the hound was still, and close enough to touch, she extended her low-temperature zone to include it. It yelped once and vanished, just like the hooded figure.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” _Oh, seriously? More super mutants? This is getting ridiculous!_ She closed her eyes, then opened them with a gasp of surprise. _I can’t sense anything outside! All I can sense is what’s here in the_ _room full of cubes_ _!_

She stood and walked back to stand where the circle had been. There were two super mutants at the far end of the hallway she’d cleared, apparently stymied by the rushing wind and vortices. _Too cold for you, huh? Well, not for long._ She reached out toward them… and nothing happened. _What? This can’t be happening!_ She grumbled and started toward the remains of the security door. As soon as she was in the short passage, she could feel everything in the library, and when she reached out, the super mutants fed her hunger. _OK, what’s going on in there? Well, whatever’s going on, I need to make sure I don’t get surprised._

On her way back into the rare books department, she slid off her backpack, rooted around in it, and pulled out some cryo grenades, tape, and a roll of monofilament. She taped two grenades into into the corners between the walls and ceiling, behind the remains of the security door, with monofilament tied to their pins and running across the passage at ankle, knee, and waist height. She repeated the trap half-way down the passage, this time with the grenades against the edges of a light fixture in the middle of the ceiling, that wasn’t giving out light any more. She finished with another pair of grenades at the inner end of the passage, where she would be certain to sense them going off even with whatever was blocking her.

Now that she was back in the room of cubes, she searched for exits. A single door on the far side of the room, near where the black hound had appeared, glowed as if it were plugged into a power main. When she got close enough to make out the handle, she saw it was a pocket door, and that the light coming from it was more of the purple-black glow. _Not risking it. She reached out to freeze the door, and it resisted. Huh? It’s resisting… it’s fighting me? How the hell can a door fight me? Fine!_ She pulled her focus back, just a fraction of an inch, until she didn’t feel any resistance, and froze the air. _Let’s see how long you can last with the cold being close enough to touch!_

The cold drew in air from outside, creating a gale of supercooled air that blasted the door until it shattered like the security door had. _Infected? You have got to be kidding me!_ With the door gone, she could sense the space beyond, where a half-dozen Infected were attempting to crowd through the opening, all at once. _Fuck! How long have they been here?_ The corpses crumbled to dust the instant she ate their parasites. _Long enough I didn’t taste anything of who they might have been before they were Infected. Damn…_ She stepped through the opening, and the space beyond lit up. _Well, it’s good to know they have their own power. Now…_

As she walked into the space, she saw cages of some kind of brass-like metal surrounding both bookshelves and sealed, climate-controlled cases, conservator desks and wide, flat drawers, and people who looked like well-dressed, non-feral ghouls.

One of the ghouls walked up to her and complained fussily, “You don’t belong here! And just look at what you did to the night watchmen! Now the Nazgûl are going to come and do an inspection, and nobody wants that!” While he was complaining, a silver crucifix he was wearing flared up in a small explosion. He looked from the scorch on his shirt to Nora, then let out a terrified screech and fled. _What was that about?_

Nora slowly turned in a circle, feeling the energy flowing from cases that weren’t encased by cages, from flat drawers, from uncaged bookshelves, and approached the nearest, a display bookshelf that held over a dozen leather-bound books. One of the books, its buckskin-colored cover tooled with scrollwork that flowed from the corners to meet along the edges, drew her eye immediately. She reached out and took it from the shelf, then slowly ran her fingers over the cover before moving to open it.

“Put. The book. On. The shelf.” The voice sounded like a man who smoked four packs a day.

Nora turned and saw a ghoul in a security guard’s uniform. She glanced from the guard’s face to his badge, then back again, and snorted in disbelief. “What? No hounds? No Infected? Just a security guard?”

The guard smirked and pointed at her, then spoke. It sounded like John had sounded when he’d frozen the roach.

**I bind you in the name of the Sleeper, to wait where you are for the arrival of my superiors.**

Nora felt… something, like she had felt from the altar, and from the Behemoth, attempting to wrap around her like a straitjacket, pressing hard enough against her to bring back her anger. She slammed the book back onto the shelf and snarled in the guard’s face, jabbing him with a fingertip as she did. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop it. Right. Fucking. NOW!” A blast of wind whipped around her and blew the guard back across the room into the nearest of the cages. She glared at the other ghouls and snarled, “WELL? Does anyone ELSE want to try something stupid?”

“Who are you?” The security guard demanded. Something about his voice was wrong. For starters, the tobacco-addict scratchiness was gone.

“Agent 99. Department of Internal Security. Who – or what – are you?” Nora snapped back.

“Who. Are. You?” The voice beat at her like a particularly nasty counter-interrogation trainer Nora remembered. That memory was enough to propel her across the floor in an angry march, and she grabbed the guard by the front of his uniform.

“I. Already. Answered.” She snarled, less than six inches from the ghoul’s face. “Now answer MY question!”

**You will submit to my authority.**

A wave of something slammed into Nora, and that was enough to destroy the last frayed shreds of her temper. She slapped the ghoul, then snarled, “Try that again and I will kill your puppet. WHO. ARE. YOU?”

“He’s already dead. What are you, that you can resist our power?” The voice coming from the guard’s mouth sounded as if he could have been discussing the décor.

“What am I? What the FUCK do you mean, what am I? What do I LOOK like?”

“You look like something from outside, that’s losing the ability to impersonate a human. So, what are you?”

Nora’s eyebrow twitched. _OK, he wants bullshit? I’ll fucking_ give _him bullshit!_

“You want to know what I am? FINE! I am the Daughter of Wendigo, the Wind-Walker, Born of Ice, who devours those who anger me! Now tell me why I should not devour YOU!” As she yelled into the face of the ghoul, she felt herself becoming stronger, as if she had eaten an entire raider camp, and the books and documents in the room responded to her as if she were a magnet and they were iron filings.

“Because if you do, you will draw our full attention. You do not want that.”

“Are you sure about that?” Nora growled, as she sensed small explosions from several locations around the room. “Maybe _you_ do not want _my_ attention.” She grinned, baring her teeth, and hissed through her clenched teeth, “Boston is _my_ town. The Commonwealth is _my_ home. Fuck with _it_ , and you fuck with _me_.”

“So be it. The next time you encounter us, we will not be so accommodating.” The guard went limp and hung as a dead weight from her hand. _Well, shit. He really_ is _dead._ Nora dropped the body and turned to glare at the other ghouls. “Does anyone else have a problem?”

“Holy shit,” one of the ghouls gasped. “You just faced down the Operational Phenomenology Agency! Um, um, um, what do you want?”

“I came for documents you have stored here. I don’t know what they are, but I can point them out to you. Like the book I picked up off that shelf.” Nora pointed at the buckskin-bound book. The ghoul that had spoken dashed to it, looked at it, then looked back at Nora.

“That’s… shit. You can sense them, can’t you? Don’t you understand this is the only safe place in the Commonwealth for them?”

“The only safe place. You’d better explain.” Nora still felt herself raging inside, but this guy was at least talking to her, so she held herself in check when talking to him.

The ghoul held up the book. “This is a copy of the Alphonso X translation of Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, that was rebound in human skin sometime in the 1700s. It is the least dangerous of the documents you can sense, and it is still capable of summoning demons that could kill everyone in this room.” He paused, then added nervously, “Well, except for you, probably.” Nora narrowed her eyes at him, and he continued quickly. “This room was designed to store the most dangerous documents, and is warded on all sides against hostile invasion. We have… well, had… security outside this area to keep anyone who didn’t have the right access out, as well as the zombie guards for anyone or anything that made it through that. Our last line of defense was him.” He indicated the dead guard. “He was trained in demonology, and had spells intended for binding anyone or anything hostile that got past the zombies.”

“Everyone, and everything, that I’ve run into since clearing a path here has attacked me on sight,” Nora grumbled. “You’re the first person to actually _talk_ to me.” She reached for a stool at one of the reading desks, and a gust of wind slid it across the floor to her so she could flop onto it. “So what now?”


	11. Like a Terror Bird Following a Cave Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora learns about the history of the Rare Books Department, is adopted by a Hound, and gets a clue about why the Reference Librarian protects books of power.

“Everyone, and everything, that I’ve run into since clearing a path here has attacked me on sight,” Nora grumbled. “You’re the first person to actually _talk_ to me.” She reached for a stool at one of the reading desks, and a gust of wind slid it across the floor to her so she could flop onto it. “So what now?”

“I don’t know,” the ghoul said. “We go into the break room and have coffee while you tell me more about why you went to all the trouble to get here? It can’t just be because these books exist.”

“You’re right. Coffee sounds really good right now. Are your coworkers going to be a problem?”

“I doubt it. I’m the Reference Librarian. They all work for me.”

“Good. That’ll make things easier. I hope.” Nora took a deep breath and stood. “So, lead the way?”

The ghoul led her to the far end of the room, to a door that had an “authorized personnel only” sign on it, and pushed the door open. On the other side was a purely mundane break room, with microwave, coffee pot, refrigerator, cabinets, and several tables with chairs around them.

“Go ahead and get comfortable. I need to make sure nothing’s decided to set up nests in the pot. Then again, we haven’t been able to make a Slocum’s Joe run in two hundred years.”

“Two hundred ten, according to my Mr. Handy,” Nora commented absently. “Luckily, I consider coffee a basic supply. Let’s see what I have in my pack.” She slipped her pack off and set it on a table, dug around in it, and came up with a tin of Slocum’s Joe original blend.

The ghoul’s eyes got wide, and she could swear he had tears in them. He approached her and asked reverently, “May I?”

“Go ahead. Make a pot. Hell, make enough for everyone. It’s the least I can do for disrupting your lives.”

The ghoul nodded, took the tin, found a can opener, and started a pot of coffee. Soon, other ghouls drifted in from the main room, all with astonished looks on their faces.

“Is that real coffee?”

“That smells like coffee!”

“I thought we ran out a hundred years ago!”

_Wow. A hundred years without coffee? That sounds like the definition of deprivation to me._

While the coffee was brewing, the Reference Librarian sat across the table from Nora and studied her thoughtfully before finally speaking up. “Your eyes aren’t glowing nearly as bright as they were. They’re still red, though. Then again, given how pissed you were at the OPA controller, I’m not surprised. None of us would be here if it weren’t for them, you know.”

“What do you mean? You were working down here when the bombs dropped, right?”

“That’s right. But they’re the reason we were working here. Boston’s rare books department has always had… books of power, I guess you could call them. But until the OPA came along, we managed them on our own, with our own security, wards, sorcerers, and so on. They came in during the War against Hitler, and completely redid everything according to their standards. I’m not entirely sure what all they did, but the Reference Librarian has kept records since the library was founded in 1848, including everything from what we have stored here to what defenses we put into place. When the OPA took over, what we have kept records of and what the Nazgûl did are entirely different things.”

“Wait. Whoever it was that was controlling the dead guard was one of the Nazgûl? You’re the third person I’ve heard use that term. What _are_ they/”

The Reference Librarian gave her a pitying look, then sighed and rubbed his temples. “You picked a fight with the Nazgûl, and you don’t even know what they are.”

“I think you have that backwards. _They_ picked a fight with _me_ , when they used the dead guy to try to… well, it felt like he was trying to imprison me.”

“It was a binding spell. Both before he died and after, although the second spell was a brute-force attempt to bind you to them, while the first was just an attempt to put magical fetters on you.”

“Well, all they managed to do was piss me off. So what were they speaking, what language was that? It felt like something I _should_ know, but which was just out of reach.”

“It’s called Enochian. Some people call it the Language of the Gods, but really it’s more like…,” he paused, then pointed at Nora’s Pip Boy. “What model is that?”

“It’s a model 3000, Mark 4. Why?”

“Mark 4? Nice. We were all issued the model 3000A.” he held up his arm so she could see his Pip Boy and its attached glove. “These are still good enough for our work, but I’m willing to bet yours is better in many ways. In any case, my point is that if you think of the universe as being kind of like a computer, Enochian is the language the operating system is written in.”

“Kind of like a computer.” Nora raised an eyebrow as she spoke. “I took a philosophy class at Harvard, where the professor said something like that. Well, for one semester, anyway. He was gone the next semester.”

“You took a philosophy class at Harvard? How did you manage that?”

“The same way I managed getting one of these.” Nora tapped her Pip Boy. “I spent the last two hundred years in Vault 111.”

“The cryo vault? No wonder! Would your philosophy professor have been Dr. Pusateri?”

“Yes...”

“I thought so.” The Reference Librarian tapped on his Pip Boy and said, “Dr. Pusateri, would you come to the break room, please?”

“Dr. Pusateri is one of you?”

“After a fashion. He’s taken our oath, or he wouldn’t be here. The security guard was the only one of us who was OPA. Everyone else here is Library, which is the only reason I, or anyone else here, can talk to you like this.”

“What do you mean?” Nora felt something at the edges of her awareness. The walls were preventing her from seeing it clearly, but what she felt leaking through the door felt like… “Super mutants. Damn it! I’ll be back soon, even if I have to clean out Copley Station to make this stop.”

Without waiting for an answer, she got to her feet and left the break room, just in time to see a super mutant coming through the door she’d blown in.

“OK, boys! Find the green stuff!” The super mutant was laughing as he shouted back through the door.

_No! You’re not going to damage these books!_ Nora used the cages to cross the room without having to weave around bookshelves and cases, ignoring the tingling feeling in her hands and feet as she leaped from cage to cage. When she got to the last cage before the door, she crouched atop it and snarled at the super mutant, “Get. Out. Or die. Your choice.” To punctuate her argument, she froze his rifle, forcing him to drop it when it got cold enough to burn his hands. It shattered when it hit the floor. “That could have been you.”

She stood and looked down on the super mutant, even if it was from only a few inches higher than he was. The super mutant looked at the shattered pieces of his rifle, then at her. His eyes narrowed, and he rubbed his chin.

“How’d you do that?”

“Magic. There’s no green stuff here. This is not the Institute. They don’t have any connection with the Institute. All they have here is old books. And me. Books no one will pay for, and a goddess who will make your death painful if you do anything to threaten them. Do you really want to risk what happened to your rifle happening to you?”

“Goddess? Yeah. Right.” The super mutant reached toward one of the books on the shelf nearest to him.

Nora growled and ate his soul. “You had your chance.”

She stalked through the door, into the room of cubes, and snapped at the hound that materialized almost at her side, “You want to kill something, kill _them!_ ” and threw it at the super mutants that were milling about in the room’s entrance, looking befuddled by its strange design and lack of light. The hound landed in the middle of the super mutants, let out a howl that Nora could only hear with her inner ear, and lay into the mutants as if they were personally responsible for it being there.

Once the mutants were all dead, the hound slunk back toward Nora, radiating confusion and uncertainty. _Damn. This thing might just be as smart as Dogmeat. Maybe smarter._

She glared at the hound, then closed her eyes so she could see it clearly, since it made her head throb when she tried looking at it normally. Once she had a good look at it, she growled, “Come with me if you want to live.”

She stepped over the drained husks that had been super mutants and stalked toward the Copley Station entrance to the library, with the hound following her. Where they walked, they left a trail of dead super mutants. When they reached the stairs to the station, Nora ate one that was cutting apart Protectrons with a minigun, while the hound tore apart both the other mutants and the mutated dogs that were with him.

Nora dropped to the floor in front of the station doors, pulled them open, then raised an eyebrow and stood aside as the hound leaped past her and dropped a super mutant that had a mini nuke strapped to his chest like a Tamil Tigers bomb vest.

She crouched to study the remains, then looked at the hound. “OK, that’s just insane. It might even kill you, so if you see one of these, don’t let him see you before you kill him.”

The hound sniffed at the mini nuke, then vanished into a corner, and the sounds of briefly-screaming super mutants came from below. When Nora reached out with her inner vision, she couldn’t find a single mutant alive in what was left of the station. The hound reappeared, then curled up at Nora’s feet.

“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Nora laughed. “I’m going to show up back in the Rare Books Department with you, and tell them, ‘Oh yeah, by the way, your security is now my companion. Sorry about that.’” She looked at the hound, smiled, and shook her head. “Or maybe not so sorry. Let’s go.”

The hound tilted its head, fangs extended and became visible, and it rose to its feet. Nora could feel that it was following her – for now – because she had given it the best hunting. Better than the beings that had made the summoning trap. She chuckled and patted its head, and felt a wave of confusion and pleasure coming from it. It seemed it had never experienced friendly contact before. Admittedly, it wasn’t easy to touch it – and Nora felt as if touching it would have killed her before she was frozen – but the hound seemed to enjoy the sensation.

“All right. What’s your name, huh?” The first sensation Nora felt was one of confusion and lack of understanding. Then, she got a sensation of stalking in the darkness, just like she did when hunting enemy agents. “Stalker. I like it. That’s what I’ll call you, then. Let’s go, Stalker. I have a librarian to talk with.”

When they got back to the Rare Books Department, the hound stopped at the door between the summoning trap and the Reference Room, and radiated a sensation of extreme discomfort when it got close to the door.

“Hold on, boy. Just relax in the darkness. I’ll see if the librarians can tell me what’s making the door hurt.”

She waved at one of the ghouls, who was wearing a mechanic’s jumpsuit that said “Corner Maintenance” where a uniform would have a name tape, and asked, “Is there something in here besides what was on the door that’s keeping my hound out?”

The ghoul stared at her, clearly convinced she was insane, then coughed and asked, “ _Your_ hound? Lady, even the Nazgûl consider them too feral for training. If one of them is following you, it’s like a terror bird following a cave man.”

Nora chuckled and glanced back into the summoning trap. “Oh, Stalker and I have an understanding.”

“You named it,” Corner Maintenance said dryly. “May all the gods of Earth help us, she _named_ it! Look, lady, do you see how there’s not a single corner in this department? Even the book shelves have fillets where the parts come together, to prevent any corners from appearing. There’s a reason for that. It’s because _those things_ come through the corners! Not only that, there are enough wards in the walls here to cause anything below a class 5 entity to implode if it attempts to enter. Your basic hound is class 3, class 4 at the very worst, although a class 4 hound would be your worst nightmare. Divine avatars are class 6 or higher, depending on how much power the god is channeling through them. Gods are most likely class 10, although class 10 is theoretically unreachable, but when it comes to gods, all bets are off.”

“You make those classes sound like the Richter scale – um, logarithmic.”

“Exactly. A class 2 entity is ten times as powerful – and intelligent – as a class 1, a class 3 is ten times a class 2, and so on.”

“And just how powerful is a class 1?”

“You ever done any hacking with that Pip Boy of yours? A class 1 entity is about as smart as the RobCo security lock program. The only thing lower than a class 1 is an eater. They’re the cause of Krantzberg-Godel Spongiform Encephalopathy or K-Syndrome.”

“Spongiform… like Kuru?”

“Right. But Kuru for mages. Eaters show up if you cast spells without using a computer to do the math, and take little bites out of your brain, just like the things that cause Kuru.”

“That sounds like what Marsha said happened to her father, because he used too much magic. She said he sacrificed himself to Ithaqua rather than decline so badly he forgot how to breathe.”

“Well, shit. Sacrificed himself to Ithaqua? Yeah. Sad thing is, I might have done the same thing, if I didn’t have an allergy to gods.” Corner Maintenance tapped his Pip Boy. “Reference Librarian, I’m by the door with our new… err… visitor? Anyway she came back with a hound in tow, and some of her questions are well above my pay grade.”

“Right. We’re on our way. Ma’am, if you’re listening to this, just stay there and Dr. Pusateri and I will be out in a moment.”

It was closer to a minute before the Reference Librarian and Dr. Pusateri made their way across the Reference Room, and Corner Maintenance quickly retreated, with a palpable air of relief at handing Nora off to them.

“All right, Agent 99. I do hope you haven’t had to kill too many people who asked you where Agent 86 is.”

“Not since I woke up, thank goodness. That was always the most annoying part of this code name.”

“Well, since you’re used to it, stay with it. We don’t want to know your true name. That would be dangerous, for you and for us.”

“It always has been. I haven’t used my true name since I was recruited by DIS. Even…” Nora let out a soft sob, then took a deep breath. “Even Nate didn’t know my true name. When we married, he only knew me as Nora Daniels, which was the cover name I’d been using for over ten years. DIS drilled every one of us until we understood, right down to our bones, that using your true name exposes everyone you ever cared for to danger from whatever bad guys we were hunting, whether it was Communists, Unionists, drug smugglers, gun runners, whatever. We were trained to respond to our cover names as if we had been born with them.”

“But you weren’t,” Dr. Pusateri said, “which is the important thing. True names are more dangerous than DIS knew. When someone knows your true name, they can not only destroy your soul, they can rewrite it, just as easily as you can rewrite a computer program.”

“That’s… disturbing.” _OK, not just disturbing, that’s frankly terrifying. No wonder nobody here has offered me a name._

“Very. The Reference Librarian tells me you attended my philosophy class, just before they scooped me up and made me an offer I wasn’t allowed to refuse.” He glanced at the Reference Librarian and chuckled. “And which, quite frankly, is better than any offer I’d expect the OPA would have made.”

“So, I remember you talking in class about the universe being kind of like a computer. Do you understand the language?”

“Well enough to teach it. I wouldn’t try using it myself, but that’s because I prefer my brain being intact. You, on the other hand, are immune to K-Syndrome.”

“I’m immune. Because of… whatever happened while I was frozen? Whatever it was that made me what I am now?”

“Exactly.” The Reference Librarian said. “The fact that you can come and go, without suffering any ill effects, means you are inhabited by a Class 6 entity. Either that, or you _are_ one, with all the memories of Nora Daniels. Not that it matters, really, because for all practical purposes, you _are_ Nora Daniels. You need to learn what we can teach you, so you don’t spill mana like a broken dam.”

“The Corner Maintenance guy was explaining entities. He said something about eaters, too.”

“They’re the magical equivalent of parasites. If a normal person does magic in his head, the parasites move in and take bites out of his brain. Microscopic bites, but still, that’s gray matter that’s gone forever. The more magic a person does, the more of his brain gets eaten. The symptoms are just like Kuru – tremors, unsteady gait, slurred speech, confusion, ataxia, emotional instability, the works. Eventually, the victim dies, after too much of the brain is eaten.”

“That’s nasty. How do you avoid it?”

“That’s why we have a mainframe down here. We’ve been using computers to do all our spell work since we got our first Difference Engine. Luckily, mainframes are a lot faster – and more compact.”

“So this Enochian is compatible with computers?”

“Very. It’s a lot like the languages RobCo and General Atomics used for developing the AIs for their robots, but with a more expansive symbology. AI languages only have to emulate human thought processes. Enochian emulates the structure of the universe.”

Nora blinked a couple times, and her mind raced as she considered the implications. _Fuck. If a psychopath ever learned the language, it would be bad._

“I can see by the look on your face, you’re beginning to understand why we put so much effort into collecting these texts and locking them away. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We don’t just have to worry about human psychopaths. We have to worry about entities, too. Most of them come from universes that are so alien to us, we are the equivalent of mayflies to them. Except, of course, those like the hounds, that are basically super-predators that ordinary people don’t have any defenses against.”

“Yeah, I saw how Stalker tore through super mutants. They didn’t stand any more of a chance against him than they did against me.”

“Is that what this is?” The Reference Librarian indicated the dead super mutant. “Why do you call them that?”

“It’s what the people above ground call them. I don’t know much about them, except that they’re apparently ordinary humans who were dipped in some kind of green goo by scientists at the Institute.”

“Green goo? I wonder…,” The Reference Librarian tapped his Pip Boy, rotated one of the switches, then spoke into it. “Hawkeye, would you come to the front door, please? I have a body I need you to examine. Load your virus analysis holotape, would you?”

“Virus, huh? We haven’t had a virus down here in over a century. I’m going to have to do some searching to find it.”

“So make another one if you have to. Download the files from the mainframe.”

“You’re serious. All right. Give me five minutes.”

“Green goo? What is it? You look as if you recognize it.” Nora asked.

“There was something the Institute was working on before the War. They called it the Forced Evolutionary Virus.” The Reference Librarian rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then worked the controls on his Pip Boy. “Yes. It was a joint program with the Pentagon. They were trying to make super soldiers.” He crouched and studied the super mutant. “If this one has any traces of the virus, I’d say their research took a seriously twisted turn.”

 


	12. Nora and the Brotherhood Don't Mix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On her way back to her cultists, Nora is distracted by Danse and Rhys and follows them to find out what they're up to. When she finally catches up to them, the encounter is less than ideal.

Enochian came to Nora as if she already knew it, but had just lost it in the back of her mind. According to Dr. Pusateri, she had learned in two weeks what had taken him ten years, and was writing her own programs to install in her Pip Boy.

 

“The fact that your Mark 4 has the ability to detect and measure thaumic energy already is a big help. You can use the outputs from the thaumometer as inputs for your programs.” the Reference Librarian commented. “Even though you’re immune to eaters, your Pip Boy can trigger a program faster than you can cast the spell in your head.”

“But I still need to know the language well enough to improvise,” Nora agreed. “What’s weird is, I feel like I’m not so much learning it, as remembering it.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Whatever you were before you became Nora Daniels, it would have been your native language.”

“Well then, let’s make sure I remember it well enough to not… how did you put it? Leak mana like a broken dam?” Nora smiled at the Reference Librarian, who chuckled in response.

“That’s what spells and programs will do for you. You don’t even need a full program for some things. Little things like killing eaters or controlling zombies can be done with macros, unless you need them to do something complicated.”

“That’s convenient. I can store a lot more on a single holotape if all I need are macros.”

“Exactly. Now let’s see how well you can construct a grid. We’ll do a privacy grid this time, so I’m certain your technique is good before we try any summonings.”

 

“Come on, Stalker. Let’s go see how my cultists are doing.” Nora stopped in the summoning trap, where a half-dozen super mutant husks lay, right where Stalker had killed them. She chuckled and patted the hound’s head.

**Had fun while I was learning, eh, boy? Good job**

The hound wiggled, radiating excitement, as the two of them left the library.

When raiders began shooting at them from a building block, Nora nodded at Stalker, who vanished into the nearest corner. A moment later, screaming and panicked gunfire came from the block of buildings, and Nora felt the raider lives snuffed out, one by one. Stalker reappeared from the corner he had vanished into, and Nora gave him an approving pat.

**Let’s do it, boy.**

She led the way through the building block the raiders had been in, and looked down on the pedestrian bridge that crossed Storrow Drive. “Well, well, looky here. Super mutants trying to block our path.” She pulled her hood over her head and vanished, then began making her way toward the bridge. She made it to within twenty feet of a super mutant holding a rocket launcher, when he – or she – or it, apparently the FEV erased all distinguishing sexual features, took aim on a caravan coming down Storrow Drive.

“Hey!” Nora called, pulling back her hood and standing up.

“Huh?” The super mutant spun toward her, triggering the missile as it did. The missile flew past her and detonated somewhere in the buildings behind her. The caravaneers looked up, then turned and ran.

Nora launched herself at the super mutant, using a gust of wind to boost her speed so her combat knife sank into the mutant’s throat. The point of the blade came out the back of its neck, while electricity shot through its flesh, making it dance as if tased. She flipped over its head, pulling the knife out and devouring its soul as its body dropped.

She landed on the balls of her feet and spun toward where another super mutant was raising its rifle in what seemed like slow motion, only to see it shrivel to a husk with Stalker standing on it.

She wiped her blade on one of the mutant’s rags, then rose to her feet.

**Just couldn’t wait for another super mutant, could you? I can’t argue. They have a lot more energy than a normal human. And almost as complex.**

Stalker flickered back to her side, radiating smug satisfaction. She laughed and patted him, shaking her head. “You are such a glutton.”

She crossed Smoot Bridge with Stalker at her side, stopped on the Cambridge side of the river, and looked up at the dome, slowly shaking her head. “You know, when I was in school, the students at the Institute used to do some amazing things with that. Now… it’s as bad as everywhere else. Come on. Let’s get out of here. I’m not even sure I want to see what condition Harvard’s in.”

Stalker radiated attentiveness, and Nora reached out. _Raiders. Even here. Not worth letting them slow me down._ She reached out and devoured the raiders in the surrounding buildings, then dove behind a wrecked car when turrets opened up on her. _Damn it! I’m getting careless!_

She pulled her hood on, popped up far enough to glance through the car’s windows, and froze the nearest turret. Once it exploded, she scanned for the other turret that had been shooting at her, and found it, half concealed behind a wall of scrap wood. _Good thing I didn’t use up all my grenades yet._

She estimated the distance, noticed a wrecked truck just past the turret, and bounced a grenade off the truck, back toward the turret. The turret went up just like the one she’d frozen personally. So far, so good.

After the raiders, the streets were quiet until she reached College Square, and saw two walking bullseyes crossing it, headed west. _Ug. Paladin Danse, and that’s probably Knight Rhys with him, then. I wonder what they’re up to._ She looked down at Stalker.

**The nice thing about mercenaries is that they stir up lots of good hunting. Let’s follow them.**

Stalker perked up at the mention of hunting, and Nora chuckled, patted him, and began following the two walking bullseyes.

 

_Arcjet Systems? I certainly had to kill enough Chinese agents trying to get in, but why would a mercenary company want anything from there, two hundred years later?_

Stalker humphed in Nora’s direction and began stalking the giant flies and mosquitoes that infested this part of the Charles. She couldn’t blame him really. She’d assumed the two walking bullseyes would have stirred up everything from feral ghouls to super mutants, but all they’d run into was a small band of Gunners, who the walking bullseyes had dispatched before Stalker could join the fun.

**Go ahead. Have fun. I sense a bunch of super mutants nearby that we can play with once I know what they’re up to here.**

Stalker perked up at the mention of super mutants, then returned to stalking giant bugs. Even with their ability to fly, the giant flies and mosquitoes were no match for him. Nora kept her attention on the Arcjet building. The sounds of laser fire began within a minute of the two walking bullseyes entering. She could follow their progress just by listening to the sounds of laser fire, even if she weren’t able to sense them with her inner vision. The weird thing was that they seemed to be shooting at mobile opponents, but unless the building was full of robots, there shouldn’t have been mobile opponents for them to shoot at. _That doesn’t make sense. The most advanced robot I know of is the assaultron, and they… oh, wait. The head laser. Right. Damn it, they could end up dead if that’s what they ran into. Fuck._

**Stalker! I’m going inside! You kill anything that comes inside the fence around the building before I come out!**

Stalker stopped stalking bugs and flickered to Nora’s side. She felt him mark out the fence line in his odd way of sensing this universe, then vanish into a corner within his limits, radiating eager anticipation. _That’s my hound._

Nora slipped up to the front door and into the building, saw the destroyed machine gun turrets, then followed the path the walking bullseyes had taken. From what she could sense, they seemed to be stuck on the top floor.

She followed the most likely path, based both on what she had sensed of their route and on the wreckage they had left behind. When she ran into the first of the destroyed… _What the hell are these? They’re too new and too advanced for robots. Is this something the Institute’s working on? Wait, maybe these are test-bed synths, like Codsworth mentioned? That would make these weapons the lasers I heard firing along with the walking bullseyes’ lasers?_

She picked up a laser and fired it into a section of wall. _Blue beam instead of red? Higher energy, maybe more deadly at the same power level, too._ She sighed, checked to make sure her hood was still in place, and hurried after the walking bullseyes.

When she caught up to the walking bullseyes, they were engaged in an exchange with a half-dozen synths, in a control room with an elevator at the far end, past the synths. It looked out over a rocket test stand built into the building. _Can I just say right now what a very, very bad idea that is? If any of the walls aren’t properly blast shielded, that pit could turn into hot flaming death for everyone in the building, especially with the amount of radiation coming from that rocket. What were they building here? A nuclear rocket?_

Paladin Danse was down, clearly hit by several lasers, and Knight Rhys was barely keeping the synths off with one hand while searching for something to treat Danse with the other. Nora sent a wave of cold through the synths that caused their lasers to shatter from the thermal stress, while their internal systems cooled fast enough to break apart. With the synths out of the picture, Nora pulled her hood off and checked Danse. _Still… not quite human? What? Never mind. He’s human enough for a stimpak to help him._ She found the stimpak port in the power armor and injected him. This was another example of the post-war magic, as far as Nora was concerned. Knowing the ingredients that went into a stimpak, there was no way, under any scientific laws, it could stimulate tissue regeneration the way it did. The fact that it did was clearly a magical effect, not scientific. Well, except by the Rare Books Department’s definition of science, anyway.

Knight Rhys was holding a laser pointed at Nora’s head. She ignored it until she felt Danse’s systems regenerating, then she slowly turned her head and looked into Rhys eye shields, while pressing her forehead against the muzzle of his laser.

“I just saved your commander. If you’re going to kill me for that, you’d better do it now, because I guarantee, if you pull that trigger and you don’t kill me, there won’t be enough left of you to scrape up with a spoon.”  
“Stand down, Rhys! You! What are you doing in here?”

“Not even a ‘thank you for saving my life, huh?’” Nora turned to face Danse while Rhy reluctantly put away his laser. “I’m in here because I heard all the laser fire and was worried the two of you had run into a building full of assaultrons. Those, on the other hand, are worse than assaultrons. Faster, more maneuverable, as flexible as humans, and with weapons that don’t need nearly as much power as an assaultron’s head laser does to punch through your armor, as you just discovered.” She snorted. “Don’t know why I bothered. It’s not as if the world needs more mercenaries.”

“We are the Brotherhood of Steel!” Danse roared, coming up off the floor and swinging at her. _Well, this is more like it. I guess I touched a nerve._ “We are not mercenaries!”

“So what are you then, huh?” Nora dropped under Danse’s swing and came up with the laser she’d collected pressed under the edge of his helmet. Danse froze, recognizing the position he was in. “Are you some kind of cult that worships power armor and lasers? Because let me tell you right now, that power armor is nothing but a walking bullseye for the really dangerous stuff out there, and your lasers are primitive compared to the stuff these synths were carrying.”

“We,” Danse grated out, “are all that remains between the people of the Commonwealth and the chaos of the wasteland, including those who misuse and abuse technology, like this corporation. Like the super mutants, the synths, the Institute.”

“A cult, then. Gotcha. Well, listen up, and listen up good.” Nora felt Rhys moving behind her, threw out a hand, and froze the joints of his armor before continuing. “I only have room for one cult in this Commonwealth, and that’s mine. You can join me, and help defend this place against the Operational Phenomenology Agency when they make their move, or you can get out of my Commonwealth, and tell your cult leaders that they’re not welcome here.”

“We are not a cult!” Danse snapped. “We have been defending humanity against those who would destroy it since the War! We hunt down and sequester dangerous technology so it can’t be used to bring about another apocalypse!” He snorted. _He’d probably spit, too, if he weren’t wearing that helmet._ “As if a civilian like you could understand.”

“Civilian?” Nora laughed. “I haven’t been a civilian since I was old enough to be recruited by the Department of Internal Security. I was a DIS agent for fifteen years before the War, and now I’m going to protect the Commonwealth. You and your cult can get on board, or you can get the hell out of my home. You don’t want to test me, _paladin_. You _do_ know what a paladin is, don’t you? I’ll give you a hint: it was my first clue that your people are a cult. I just didn’t want to believe it, since I’d already run into another cult, that I still have to deal with.” She glared into his eye plates and growled, “Your masters do _not_ want to test me. I am more than willing to get basic in my responses. And in my case, ‘basic’ means anything from bringing down a Nor’easter that can wipe out this entire region to eating the souls of every intelligent being within five miles. Either one is just as easy as freezing the joints on his armor was.”

“You are insane.” Danse attempted to knock the laser aside. Nora snatched it back, then took advantage of the paladin’s movement to guide his arm into a position that jammed it against his armor’s chest plate where she could apply pressure that he would feel through the frame.

“Not insane,” Nora said. “Just not human.” She leaned in to whisper, confident his helmet could pick it up, “I’m no more human than you are. Maybe less, since the woman whose memories I carry died over sixty years ago. How long ago did your human die?”

She felt the rage and denial coming from Danse, and let him throw her off, so she’d have more room to maneuver.

“I. Am. Human!” Danse fired blindly at Nora. As he fired, she could feel that she’d struck a nerve, that as much as he hated non-humans, he had a niggling suspicion that he wasn’t what he imagined he was, that his memories weren’t truly real.

Nora threw a wall of ice up between her and Danse, dense and angled to deflect the shots. When Danse ejected his drained fusion cell, Nora slapped the pistol out of his hand and froze his armor in place. “When you’re ready to find out what’s really going on, find me at Sanctuary Hills, Tenpines Bluff, or Copley Square. Don’t worry. When you come looking for me, _I’ll find you._ ”


	13. A Visit to the Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nora's first visit to her temple after going to the library. She makes an impression on a trader, and choose to initiate Marsha as her First Lover.

Just down on the near bank of the Charles was a pre-war water treatment facility that had been overrun by super mutants. Nora sat on a hill overlooking the facility while Stalker swept through it. _Brotherhood of Steel doesn’t seem like a local thing. Danse’s accent seemed more DC than Boston. If that’s the case, they could be connected to – or at least controlled by – the Nazgûl. That would be bad. From what the Reference Librarian said, the Nazgûl are mostly demons and their puppets, and have the delusion that they can control more powerful beings._ _Add a high-tech military force to that and they could be a real threat. I’m going to have to make sure the Minutemen are as ready as possible, put down the Institute before it becomes more of a problem than just dumping super mutants on us and sending synths out to terrorize us, and find any psykers that might be in the Commonwealth so I can figure out how many have any talent for magic. And do it all before the inevitable attack._ She sighed heavily. _I never signed up to be a freaking leader. I never signed up to be a goddess, either, and look how much the universe cares about that._

Stalker flickered into place at her side, and she reached out to pat him absently. _Well, time to go._

The wind lifted her into the air and carried her to Tenpines Bluff. As she passed over the Starlight, she saw Preston had taken her suggestions to heart, and it was shaping up to be a decent trade hub, with shipping containers dragged in to use as storage sheds, regular patrols, a sprawling shack that looked as if it were being used as a motel, and several stalls set up for trading. _Nice. All they needed was a nudge to get them started._

When she landed at Tenpines Bluff, she saw that the shack John and Marsha were sleeping in had been patched up so it didn’t look nearly as much like it was going to fall down. The walls had been patched around the altar, and a roof set atop them to keep the weather off. A trader was sitting with his guards at a campfire behind the shack. All three of them stared at Nora as she landed and the wind dissipated.

“Mistress!” Marsha was as enthusiastic as ever.

“Welcome back, Mistress.” John bowed gravely as he greeted her.

“ _This_ is your mistress?” the trader blurted, staring at Nora. “I didn’t believe it was possible! Where’s your jet pack?”

“There’s one attached to my walking bullseye,” Nora said, smirking at the trader. “I don’t like wearing it, though. It’s too big, bulky, and easy to hit.”

“Walking… bullseye? What the fuck?”

“Power armor. T-45. Not the most modern armor, but even the T-60s are just walking targets. The only difference is how hard it is to break them. And I can break them pretty easily.” Nora shrugged. “So what do you deal in?”

“Err… armor,” the trader squeaked. “You… can break… power armor.”

“As easily as I can call down a freezing wind. They’re only metal, after all. Anyway, I’ve picked up a few pieces of armor that I don’t have any use for, and I didn’t feel like stopping at the Starlight to sell it. Let’s trade.”

“Yes. Yes. Let’s trade!” The trader sounded as if the idea of trading was a great way to keep his sanity.

Nora set down her pack, began digging out pieces of armor she’d thought were good enough to be worth stripping off dead raiders, and set them in front of the trader. It didn’t take long before his professional interest trumped his nerves at the way she’d arrived. He was so caught up in examining the armor, he didn’t even notice when Stalker stepped out of a corner in the altar shack and settled down to watch the humans.

The trader was good at his work. Even the couple pieces Nora had noticed mana radiating from hadn’t fetched more than a hundred caps each – and she was still getting used to the idea of bottle caps as currency – but she’d been able to pick up some blue items for John and Marsha to break down and make ritual robes from. The idea had come to her while she was picking through the trader’s stock, and she’d decided to run with it. Besides, if she understood what the Librarians had taught her correctly, the more associations used in rituals, the more successful they were, which she hoped would mean fewer rituals needed for anything they wanted to accomplish.

Hauling a proper computer up the bluff would be a pain in the ass, but since this was where her temple was, she needed one here, just to keep her priest and priestess from becoming drooling idiots and dying on her before the inevitable war. Thinking about that, she put her head in her hands and groaned. _Fuck. I’m gonna need a bigger cult, just to take the load off these two. Hell, if I could get my hands on a few night people, and convince them to feed on raiders, they’d be an even bigger boost._

“Mistress? Are you all right?” _Of course Marsha would have noticed. She’s a lot more perceptive than John is._

“Just thinking about everything we need to do. We need to make the temple bigger, haul a computer up here, get more cultists, try to recruit some night people, and train you and any new cultists in how to use the computer for running wards and defensive magic.”

“Use a computer for magic? How is that possible?”

Nora chuckled and loaded a simple fire bolt macro from her macros holotape. “Like this, hon.” She pointed at a broken tree trunk that stood about four feet high, about twenty feet away, and activated the macro. A blast of fire shot from her hand and blew the trunk into splinters as effectively as if she’d hit it with a cryogenic bolt. Some of the splinters smoldered, all of them smoked, and a few of the smaller ones had ignited.

“Your Pip Boy did that!” Marsha looked up at Nora, eyes wide, as she gasped, “How?”

“Enochian. It’s easy to program into a computer. If we can get a proper computer up here, and build a proper temple to house both it and the altar, we can use the computer to do all the defensive wards and magic that doesn’t require thinking on your feet. It’ll never substitute for rituals, of course – speaking of which, we need to recruit some guards who aren’t afraid to go up against Gunners, raiders, or super mutants. They’re my sacrifices of choice.”

“Gunners?” Marsha squeaked. “They’re, they’re-”

“Scum. Begging to be used as sacrifices. And just as easy to take down as any raider, as long as you’re paying attention to how they operate.”

“We’re going to need really good guards, then. The Gunners aren’t just rabble. They’re mercenaries. They have the best weapons money can buy, and real combat armor, and real training.”

“So our guards are going to need to be just as good. you’re right. We’ll have to… hold on a sec.” She activated her radio. “Garvey? Preston? I’m back from the library. I’ll be heading to Sanctuary soon, but before I do, have your scouts found any other places that would make good settlement sites if they’re cleared out?”

“As a matter of fact, there are several.” _Preston didn’t even sound surprised it took me so long to check in. Poor guy probably thought I’d abandoned him._ “One’s at an old relay tower to the northeast of Tenpines Bluff. If you go there, you should be able to see it. That would probably be the easiest to start with. There are some raiders there, but you already know how to handle them. Then there’s a cottage on the coast north of Salem that’s on top of a bluff. You can’t miss it. There’s an old truck crashed through it. There’s an old co-op farm southwest of the drive-in, on the hill to the south of the dam. There’s an old boat house on the lake south of Mercer. There’s an island east of the old sewage treatment facility. Thank that’s enough to keep you busy for a few days?”

Nora laughed at the response. “I think so, Preston. I really think so. I’ll compare maps with you when I get to Sanctuary, OK?”

“Sounds good to me. And, welcome back.”

“Thanks, Preston. It’s good to be back.” Nora switched off the radio, then grinned at Marsha. “I think we have some places we can choose from for training guards. The old relay tower might even be a good place to keep captured raiders until we need them.”

“Oh yes, Mistress. We’ve seen the raiders that come and go from there. The man on your Pip Boy didn’t mention it, but one of them wears power armor, and I think he uses a Fat Man, too.”

“Oh, really?” Nora chuckled. “I’ll bet that makes him think he’s tougher than the average raider, too.”

“They call him Boomer, from what the traders say. They’ve learned to avoid going that far north.”

“Well, we’re about to change that. Once I’ve cleared the relay site, we’ll have to get some people to occupy it and start setting it up to store captured raiders and house guards between raids on raider camps.” She looked around thoughtfully. “I have an engineer at Sanctuary who I’ll ask to come visit you and help set up some wind generators. We also need to make the temple bigger. It should have rooms for you and your acolytes to live in, storage for necessities, room for training your acolytes, and ritual space around the altar, at the very least. I’d suggest more room for comfort, like a common room for meals and some basic recreation, some space for traders to camp when they’re here, that kind of thing.”

“John’s going to be anxious, you know. He’s so used to hiding and trying to protect me and our tome, being out in the open is going to make him scared.”

“Well, that’s part of why we need guards. Now, let’s stop worrying about that, huh?” She smiled and teased Marsha gently, “Remember how I promised you more attention as a reward for doing as I asked?”

Marsha blushed a brilliant pink and nodded. Nora pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her, just as thoroughly as she had when bonding with her. She felt her priestess’ heart racing and her body flushing, while a mixture of desire and confusion filled her.

“Marsha, honey? Have you never had a lover? Ever?”

Marsha’s head jerked in denial, then pressed against Nora’s shoulder, and she whispered, “Even if it were safe, who would I have outside the temple? And aren’t most of them raiders or worse?”

Nora sighed and stroked Marsha’s hair. _Oh, you poor girl. At least you weren’t forced to marry a man in order to fit in, but_ _to think everyone but your brother is too dangerous to risk just leaves you open to some of the worst features of the cults recorded in the Library._

“Marsha, honey, you are going to be my First Lover. That means that no matter what other lovers I choose, you are both my priestess and my lover, and no one can take that from you.” She cupped Marsha’s chin and looked into her eyes as she continued. “It also means you’re going to have to teach any other lovers I take, so they know how to make us happy, because my lovers must also love each other.”

“Love each other?” Marsha looked at Nora, obviously confused.

“That’s right, honey. I won’t take any other lover unless you and she are willing to be lovers, too. I won’t have my worshipers jealous of each other or fighting for my attention. Instead, they will love each other as much as I love them.”

“You… love me?” Marsha’s question came out in a squeak.

“That’s right, honey. When I bound us together, I learned everything there is to know about you, and what I learned about is a woman I can love.”

“It’s so confusing. Father taught us that the gods are terrible, that we worship them so that when they come and devour the world, we become the first, so that we don’t suffer as those who don’t worship them will.”

“My father may be terrible, hon. In fact, everything I’ve learned about him says that he is, that he would sooner eat you than hear your prayers. But I’m not my father. This is my home, and I will be just as cold as he is in defense of it, but for those I love, I will be as warm as the fire you huddle next to on a winter night.” Nora took Marsha’s hands and led her to the shack, then locked the door behind them. “John can sleep with the traders tonight.”


End file.
